Wiccapedia
by MetalOx137
Summary: Piper Halliwell and her sisters begin their apprenticeship in magic, under the watchful eye of their mysterious new guardian, Leo Wyatt. Episode 2 of the Charmed AU series.
1. Chapter 1

It had been, Piper Halliwell told herself, a very long three days.

Three days ago, Piper had arrived at her grandmother's house, with the full intention of putting the property on the market and selling it. Her Grams had passed away a little over a month ago, but several months prior to that, Piper had spent most of her waking hours as her grandmother's primary caregiver while the old woman lay dying from cancer. The caregiving title was a complete misnomer. Despite her best efforts, Piper for the most part could only watch helplessly as Grams withered away slowly and inexorably, most of the time in great pain, despite the formidable array of medications provided by hospice to alleviate her symptoms. Piper in no way regretted her decision, but the procession of countless days and nights of nonstop caregiving left her utterly exhausted, infused with a bone-weariness that even a succession of good night's sleep would not resolve. Her emotions were rubbed raw and enflamed. Weeks after the funeral, Piper was still throbbing with pain, emotionally, spiritually and physically.

But even as she was preparing herself for the agony of detaching herself from the house she had grown up in, life had a curious series of surprises in store for Piper Halliwell.

First was the arrival of Piper's baby sister, Paige. The youngest of the Halliwell sisters was supposed to just be coming up for the weekend, to help Piper with the preparations to sell the house. Instead, Paige informed her big sister that she'd already left Los Angeles for good; and instead of sharing an apartment, as they'd originally planned, she suggested simply keeping the house.

Piper wasn't adverse to the idea. But the prospect of owning and maintaining the home with just their two meager salaries was a virtual impossibility. If they were going to hang onto the family home, they were going to need help, and lots of it.

Help arrived in the most improbable form that Piper could think of. Her younger sister Phoebe, who had once vowed never to return to San Francisco or set foot again in the manor, abruptly did both of those things, even offering to commit her short term future to staying with her sisters and help them defray the costs of home ownership.

Both of these surprises paled in comparison to the one that was waiting for Piper in the attic of her grandmother's house. Locked away in a large trunk, Piper and Paige found the true heritage of the Halliwell family: their mother and grandmother were both witches, legitimate practitioners of magic, as were several of their ancestors - and that gift of magic had been passed down to all the surviving sisters. Piper was a witch. Her sisters were witches. And in that trunk were all the implements they would need to be practitioners of the craft: altars, athames, cauldrons, potions, a spirit board, but most important of all, a massive grimoire titled "The Book of Shadows", which not only contained a seemingly inexhaustible compendium of magical knowledge, but also included a fair amount of Halliwell family history, information that certainly was not recorded elsewhere in more official records.

Piper didn't exactly take the news well.

Whether she truly didn't believe in magic, or if she was trying to convince herself she didn't, Piper did everything possible to distance herself from this unwelcome legacy. That is, until a demon followed her home, and she and her sisters had to cast a spell to rid themselves of it. The spell they used was identified as an unbinding spell, and it was intended to restore all the lost magical powers and abilities to Piper and her sisters - powers they were born with, but, for reasons unknown, their grandmother had locked away from them.

Piper was still reeling from these revelations when one more final surprise arrived on her doorstep in the form of the handyman she had hired to help her fix up the house. His name was Leo Wyatt, and he seemed personable and charming, but most of all deeply sympathetic to the sisters' grief. On this particular morning, however, his agenda wasn't broken water heaters or faulty wiring. Instead, he told Piper of his awareness that she and her sisters had become witches, and that he was volunteering his services to help them learn how to use their powers. But what really set Piper off was Leo's claim that he had somehow spoken to Piper's long dead older sister, Prue.

Piper was capable of tolerating a great deal. But after all she'd been through in the last seventy-two hours, this was something of a final straw. She allowed Leo to enter the house, albeit with great misgiving; and decided before the conversation went anywhere else, she was going to air that grievance fully.

"I'm going to try and be nice here," she said to Leo, as she stood with him and her two sisters in the foyer. "I'm not going to raise my voice. Not scream and yell. Not actually blow anything up. Because, apparently, I can do that now. I want to know why my grandmother knew about this pretty much her entire life, and couldn't say two words about it, not to me, or my sisters, or anyone; but you, a complete stranger, who seems to have direct access to my subconscious, can. Give me one good reason why I should trust you. Give me half a reason. And talk fast, because my very calm demeanor is going to explode into a screaming rage in about twenty five seconds from now."

"Piper…" Leo sighed heavily. "I know this is going to be hard to accept. But the reason I know what Prue said to you is because… I spoke with her."

"My sister is _dead_ , Leo."

"Spirits are eternal, Piper. She told you that."

"In a dream. I was having a dream."

"Were you? Were you really?" Leo countered. "Think about it, Piper. Have you ever had a dream that felt like that? That you remember as clearly as a memory, hours after waking up?"

Piper didn't answer, her conscious mind was too busy recalling the love she felt when Prue had hugged her - and how it comforted her still. No, it wasn't a dream. She had no idea how that was even possible, but she was almost certain of it: she had actually spoken to her dead sister. She felt her rage dissolving into grief again.

"I don't understand," she said brokenly.

Leo sighed again. He looked for all the world like all he wanted to do was take this grieving woman into his arms and hold her. But he couldn't, not until she trusted him first.

"If you'll allow me," he said quietly, "I would be very happy to sit with you and your sisters, for as long as you want, and answer any questions about what has happened to you. I know this must be difficult for you. Most witches grow up with their powers. You and your sisters only found out you were witches two days ago. You've had access to your magical abilities for less than a day. That's hardly the ideal way to be introduced to the world of magic."

"You're telling us," Phoebe grumbled.

"But this is not just about learning to use your powers. It's also about your perceptions. You're going to be able to see things, experience things, that you never could before. The world is going to look completely different to you from now on. You need to be ready for that."

He looked over at Paige. "Your sister is able to trust me, because with her abilities, she can sense who and what I am, even if she doesn't fully understand yet."

"Then help us out," Paige pleaded. "Who - or what - are you?"

Leo smiled grimly. "I'm going to try to keep this simple. All good witches have guardians. I'm yours."

"You're our guardian," Paige repeated, not entirely sure she understood.

"Yes. It's my job to protect you, and guide you in the use of your magical powers."

Paige cocked her head in puzzlement. "You're not a witch," she said slowly. "Or a warlock. Or whatever. You're something… else. What are you?"

Leo smiled. "That's good. You're starting to reach out with your new perceptions. Can you tell me what I am?"

Paige made a face. "You want me to guess?"

"No. I want you to use your abilities. You see the truth of things, Paige. You can see into anyone's heart. Instinctively, you already know I'm not a danger to you. But your sisters can't see what you can. See if you can 'read' me."

Gamely, Paige frowned in concentration.

"If you're not sure of what you see, look inside yourself," Leo suggested quietly.

Paige closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them wide in astonishment.

"Oh, my God," she murmured, shocked.

"What? What is it?" Piper asked.

"He's… I… we're the same?" Paige looked at Leo. "I'm not a witch?"

Leo grinned. "Yes, you're a witch," he assured her. "But you're also much more than that."

"What do you mean, the same?" Piper demanded, feeling vaguely alarmed.

"If I'm not just a witch, then what am I?" Paige asked pointedly.

"That… will take some explaining," Leo said ruefully, rubbing the back of his neck with slight embarrassment.

"Okay, you guys, this is the point where I check out, because this is just getting too damn weird," Phoebe declared.

"I'm inclined to agree," Piper nodded.

"Guys, wait," Paige pleaded. "I know this sounds crazy, but… we really can trust him, and he really can help us. I can't explain it, but please, just give him a chance. And frankly, after what happened to us yesterday, we need all the help we can get."

Piper stared at Leo long and hard, and he smiled back at her self-effacingly.

"You only got in the door because Paige was willing to vouch for you," she decided aloud. "We were about to sit down to breakfast. You can join us. And you have exactly that long to convince Phoebe and me that we should trust you."

"Thank you," Leo said humbly.

For the next few minutes, a welcome sense of normalcy settled around the house, as Piper quickly scrambled some eggs, Paige re-heated the rest of the apple muffins she'd brought from the market, and Phoebe set out plates, napkins, silver, a creamer filled with half and half, cups of coffee and glasses of juice. After everyone had settled into their seats at the dinette, Piper quickly said grace, and then they dug into their meal with gusto.

"So, are you really a handyman?" Paige asked Leo, pulling apart her muffin. "Or is that just a disguise?"

Leo chuckled. "I'm really a handyman. And I really do fix up houses for a living."

"But you're also a guardian for witches?"

"Sometimes. When I'm needed."

"So, you've done this before," Paige pressed. "You've been a guardian for other witches besides us."

"Wait, there are other witches?" Phoebe groaned, as if the idea had just occurred to her.

"Yes, Phoebe. There are lots of witches. Probably more than you'd think. And yes, Paige, I have been a guardian before. But not for anyone you've ever met."

"It's not your average moonlighting gig." Piper's measured tone betrayed she'd lost none of her anger, and was still not ready to concede the slightest degree of trust.

"No." Leo took a sip from his coffee, apparently embarrassed. "It's not exactly a job you apply for. You have to be called."

Paige looked at the young man long and hard. "You're a spiritual social worker," she exclaimed.

Leo smiled. "Something like that. It's okay, Paige. I can sense you're still trying to read me. My heart and my mind are open to you. See how far you can get. I won't hide anything."

"So, why are you here, with us?" Phoebe asked.

"I'm assuming you mean about being your guardian, not because I was hired to do the inspection on your house?"

Phoebe nodded.

"Because… when I was here yesterday, it was obvious you had just gained your magical powers. And frankly, because I sensed you were in trouble. A lot of trouble. In magical terms, you ladies basically set off a four alarm blaze. It was kind of hard not to notice."

There was an awkward silence, as each of the sisters mulled over the implications of Leo's answer.

"So, what exactly do you do?" Phoebe asked finally. "If you're our guardian, what's in the job description?"

"You're our protector," Paige said with sudden insight. "Literally, our guardian. It's not a title. You're here to protect us."

Leo nodded. "That's right, Paige."

"Protect us from what?" Piper asked suspiciously.

Leo hesitated a moment before answering. "Not all magical beings are benign," he allowed. "There are a few that work in darkness. They are creatures you would describe as evil. And they could do you a great deal of harm, if you're not prepared for them."

"What kind of creatures?" Phoebe asked, suppressing a shudder.

"You know them by many different names. Demons. Warlocks. Even other witches, if they choose to use their powers for evil." Leo paused. "Most of the magical beings you'll encounter aren't malevolent. But the few that are… well, you need to be able to identify them. And, if necessary, deal with them. For your own safety."

"What would they want with us?" Paige asked, baffled.

"You have power," Leo said simply. "Enormous amounts of magical power, that evil beings would do almost anything to acquire."

Piper set down her coffee mug. "Even kill."

Leo looked at her soberly. "Yes."

He sighed. "I don't want to frighten you," he said. "But until you learn how to use your powers, you're very vulnerable. There are evil forces out there that wouldn't think twice about harming you, if they thought they could steal your magical powers as a result. And if I'm being completely honest, I'm also here to protect you from yourselves. Magic can make you a little… giddy at first. It's kind of hard not to go on a power trip."

"Why you?" Piper asked. "Don't we get any choice in choosing our guardian?"

"It doesn't work like that."

"Then how does it work, exactly?"

"You're thinking it's too much of a coincidence that I just showed up here, and you're right. Think of me as the case worker who has been assigned to you," Leo suggested.

Paige brightened a little; this was a simile she understood.

Piper took a long swig from her coffee mug before replying. "That's all fine. You still haven't told me one thing that makes me want to trust you."

Leo thought hard for a minute. "Maybe it would be easier to show you," he said at last.

Both Phoebe and Paige perked up, their interest piqued. "Show us what?"

"How would you ladies feel about a little field trip?"

A short time later, Piper, Paige, Phoebe and Leo stepped out onto the front porch, bundled up in long coats, insulated jackets and hats. The sky was clear, but the early February morning was still quite cold, just a few degrees above freezing.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Piper grumbled, shivering in the cold.

"Come on, Piper," Paige cajoled gently. "Leo says he can show us some things that are wonderful about magic. After the creepshow we had yesterday, I'm all for that."

Leo smiled. "The first thing I have to show you isn't any farther than the flower bed," he assured them.

They walked down the steps to the raised beds that ran the length of the porch. There were small shrubs on either side of the beds. Leo knelt down, reached out and gently pulled the foliage to one side. In response, a small cloud of brilliantly colored lights began buzzing around the leaves and stems; almost like strings of miniature Christmas lights come to life.

"What are those?" Paige breathed in wonderment.

"Well… they don't really have a name," Leo admitted. "Not that I know of, anyway. But, these are the immature forms of fairies."

"Fairies. Fairies are real." Phoebe shook her head in bemusement.

"Of course they are," Leo grinned. "I guess you could think of these as fairy polliwogs. They begin to cluster naturally, wherever there is a source of good magic nearby. This population is already pretty dense, so they must know that a powerful coven of good witches lives here."

Slowly, the scattering of colored lights dimmed, and a few could be seen flickering to find hiding places on the undersides of the leaves.

"In a few months, there will be a ring of fairies living all around the house."

Paige frowned. "I thought fairies were supposed to be - well, not evil exactly, but mischief makers," she objected.

Leo smiled. "These won't be," he promised. "In fact, once they're fully mature, they will make a perfect natural barrier against demons."

"Really." Piper still wasn't sure she was buying any of Leo's remarks, but anything promising a safeguard against evil caught her attention.

Leo stood up, wiping the dew from his hands. "Anyway, if I can coax you ladies into a quick walk, three blocks up to the park, we can see things that are a lot more interesting than this."

Paige and Phoebe both looked to Piper for approval, and after a moment, she nodded tersely. They began to walk leisurely along the sidewalk. Paige fell into step beside Leo, and Piper and Phoebe followed a few paces behind. Despite the chill in the air, it was clearly going to a fairly mild winter's day, brighter and clearer than usual for the season.

"So, my sisters and I are a coven?" Paige asked Leo. "I thought a coven had to have at least thirteen witches."

"Actually, I really shouldn't have referred to you as a coven," Leo admitted. "But not because of the number. As a general rule, covens aren't comprised of members from a single family. The term implies a collection of individuals, not all of whom are directly related to one another."

"Oh. So, we're just a family then."

"A very blessed family," Leo pointed out.

Paige nodded thoughtfully. "So, are you going to tell me what I am? Or maybe I should say, what you and I are."

Leo gave her a pained look. "I would like to explain it to you, Paige. I really would," he said. "But if I tried to explain everything to you right now, it wouldn't make any sense to you. I'm not trying to be evasive. Frankly, I'm still trying to figure out the best way to explain it to you, so it will make sense. I'm going to have to ask for a little more time on that one."

"A loaded question, huh?" Paige grinned.

"You have no idea," Leo smiled ruefully.

A few steps behind, Phoebe was watching Piper with concern. Her big sister was paying far too much attention to the ground beneath her feet, head downcast, frowning.

"You okay?" she asked quietly.

"No," Piper said truthfully, but she didn't elaborate.

They walked in silence for a few moments. Phoebe decided to venture another question, hopefully one more helpful. "Is there anything I can do for you?" she asked plaintively. "Anything at all?"

Piper didn't answer right away, but she did lift her head to look where she was going, instead of at her feet. She sighed, then cast an indifferent look to her sister.

"Maybe if you can convince me you're not going to just disappear again, and make me really believe it, that would help."

Phoebe took the rebuke like a swat across her nose. She swallowed hard. After a moment, she reached out for her sister's hand and clasped it tightly.

"I'm here," she vowed solemnly. "I'm staying."

They walked hand in hand for a few steps, Piper staring steadfastly ahead of her.

"At some point, I'm going to have to scream and yell at you for real," she said finally.

"I know," Phoebe answered meekly, and gave her big sister's hand a gentle squeeze. Piper still didn't look at her, but to Phoebe's great relief, Piper responded by giving Phoebe's hand a gentle squeeze of her own. She wasn't yet forgiven, but it was no longer out of the question. A faint hopeful smile played about Phoebe's lips.

A few moments later, the sisters and Leo arrived at the edge of the park. No wider than a quarter of a city block, it still was a welcome pocket of greenery wedged in between the houses of the suburbs and the larger buildings of downtown. A fair number of people were walking or jogging through the area, as always. But the sisters gaped open-mouthed at the sheer number of other magical creatures they saw.

Apparently entirely invisible to the men and women passing by, a large, tall figure with a head like a bison but curled horns like a ram, strode impassively through the grass, walking upright like a man. The creature was wearing a long leather coat over a battered blue work shirt and dungarees, but no shoes; it had hands like a man, but for feet it had wide, cloven hooves such as might be found on a deer or a large cow. Noticing the witches staring at him, he ruffed in irritation, shaking his head.

"It's impolite to stare," Leo said to the sisters, in a low voice that would be audible only to them. All three women immediately cast their gazes elsewhere, and the creature moved on, still grunting irritably to itself.

A cluster of bright lights caught Phoebe's eye at the tree line. She tugged at Leo's sleeve and pointed.

"More fairies?" she asked excitedly.

Leo looked over to where Phoebe was pointing. He grinned. "No," he said. "Pixies and sprites, probably. If you go sit in the grass and stay quiet for a minute or two, they'll come right up to you."

"Really? We can do that? It's okay?"

Paige regarded the fleeting forms dubiously. "They won't bite… will they?"

Leo grinned. "No," he assured them. "But if you sit quietly, they'll form a ring around you and start dancing. The good magic you radiate will be like food for them. Go on, it's perfectly safe," he urged.

Phoebe and Paige exchanged an expectant look with each other.

"You wanna try it?" Phoebe asked shyly.

"Okay," Paige agreed, "But if they start climbing all over me, I'm gonna stomp on 'em."

The two sisters moved off in the direction of the trees.

Piper stood where she was, her eyes transfixed by something floating in the breeze. It looked for a moment like a tiny scarf caught in the wind, but it had an undulating, translucent body with a slightly pinkish color, with a motion suggestive of a jellyfish.

"What the hell is that?" she asked Leo.

"Oh, that's just a passing mood," he explained. "They're all over the place."

"A mood?"

"Yeah, haven't you ever been struck by a mood? Happens all the time. I constantly see people walking around with several of them plastered to their faces."

"Are they dangerous?"

"Not really. They can influence how you feel, but only for a short time. There's no lasting effect. You'll see them in all different colors. Blue ones make you feel sad. Red ones make you feel angry."

"That one is sort of pink, so it's what, just kind of irritated?" Piper guessed.

"No," Leo smiled shyly. "The pink ones are highly erotic."

The mood wafted a little closer to them, and Piper took an uneasy step back.

"It can't harm you," Leo assured her. "You can even touch it, if you want. Just hold out your hand."

Not quite sure that was something she wanted to do, Piper reluctantly splayed her fingers and raised her hand slightly, just so the underside of the creature barely grazed her fingertips. Piper flinched, withdrew her hand, and screwed her eyes shut. After a moment, she opened them again, and couldn't quite suppress a shudder.

"It wasn't that bad, was it?" Leo frowned with concern.

"No," Piper answered. "No, it was pretty much like you said. But that was really not something I needed to be feeling right now."

"It will pass in a moment," he promised. "Why don't we sit down."

He indicated a nearby park bench, and gratefully, Piper took a seat. Leo sat down next to her. They watched as a short distance away, Paige and Phoebe were laughing delightedly at the shimmering forms gathering around them. Leo turned to look at Piper, and saw her clenched jawline. He sighed with dismay.

"You're still angry," he said quietly.

"Oh, I'm a little more than that." Beneath her calm exterior, Piper was inwardly seething. "Grams knew about all of this. And she kept it from us our whole lives."

Leo regarded her for a long moment before answering. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "I know this must be difficult for you. I never met your mother or your grandmother. I can only guess at what their intentions were. But I'm reasonably sure their overriding concern was to protect you."

Piper snorted in disgust. "My Grams lied to me my whole life. Every day, she would look at me and act like the world was normal."

"It is normal. It just looks strange to you because you've never had these perceptions before. The world hasn't changed, Piper. You have."

Piper shook her head slowly, not understanding and not wanting to.

"I just don't understand," she said in a lifeless voice. "We can see all this magic all around us, and it doesn't make any difference. People still get sick. They still die."

"Oh, but magic does make a difference, Piper," Leo said earnestly. "It's hard for you to see that right now, because you haven't been aware of its influences for long enough. But I promise, it matters very much."

Piper didn't answer. She was staring off in the direction where her sisters were playing, but her eyes had lost focus and she wasn't seeing anything at all.

"You're wondering if you could have used magic to save your grandmother's life," Leo guessed. "Or, failing that, at least make her more comfortable."

Piper looked directly at Leo, her vision instantly regaining sharp focus. "Could it? Could I have saved her using magic?"

Leo hesitated for a long moment, then sighed sadly. "No," he said finally. "I doubt it."

"Then what the hell good is it?" Piper asked bitterly.

Leo thought over his reply carefully. "The first thing you'll learn as a witch is, there has to be balance in the world. Positive and negative energies, balancing each other. Yes, you could have taken a great deal of positive magical energy and transferred it to your grandmother. But in the long run, the outcome would still have been the same. Maybe you could have bought her a little more time. Maybe not. But every one of us is mortal. We all die eventually. And using all that energy would create a gap, a void, somewhere else - maybe someplace where that magical energy was urgently needed."

"Yeah, ask me how much I care about that," Piper almost spat the words.

"Nothing lasts forever, Piper."

"I thought you said all spirits are eternal."

"They are. But they don't stay here, in this realm, for eternity. They move on. All things pass away, Piper, that's how it works. Even this grief you're feeling right now, I know it seems endless, but you will pass through it. I promise you, you will. And you will know happiness, and even joy, again."

He looked across the park towards the tree line. "Look at your sisters," he said quietly. "They are hurting just as badly as you are, maybe even worse. They may not show their grief in the same ways you do, but it's so. And they need you, Piper. They need you desperately. Comfort them. And let them comfort you. It's the quickest way back to the peace of mind you're seeking."

Piper stared long and hard at Leo, taking his full measure for the first time. He began to feel distinctly self-conscious under her unblinking scrutiny. Finally, she visibly relaxed, just a hint of a smile on her lips.

"What is it?" Leo asked.

"Nothing," she demurred. "I just came to a decision, that's all."

"Which is?"

"I don't trust you yet," she said. "But, if you come back to the house tomorrow, I will trust you enough to let you make your case."

A slow grin spread across Leo's face as he realized the implications of Piper's words. He soberly nodded his agreement. "That's a start," he answered. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. I'm still planning to put you to work. That house is a real mess."

Leo actually chuckled, the tension between them finally broken. "It's not a mess. It just needs a little help."

Piper nodded thoughtfully. "Sounds like all of us," she agreed, and for the first time that morning, rewarded him with a relaxed, friendly smile.

It was some time later in the day before Leo Wyatt left the sisters back at their home, and then clambered into his battered green pickup truck. He had barely driven to the end of the block, however, when he recognized a man in dark grey suit, who was leaning with feigned nonchalance against a nondescript sedan parked along the street. Leo pulled his truck into the empty space just ahead of the sedan, and got out of the cab.

"Hey," he greeted him. "What are you doing here?"

The man shook his head disapprovingly. "I don't know what you think you're playing at, Wyatt," he groused in reply.

"Yeah, good to see you too, Inspector Morris."

"Are you trying to get yourself arrested?"

"Why?" Leo grinned. "Are you going to arrest me?"

"You know very well I'm not the authority you answer to."

Leo joined the man at the curb, and affected the same half-sitting, half-leaning posture of his companion on the hood of the car.

"So they've got you staking out the Halliwells? I guess I should have expected that."

Inspector Morris harrumphed in disgust, and ignored Leo's question completely.

"Seriously, Leo, what do you think you're doing? Revealing yourself like that to your charges. That's like, rule number one for being a guardian. Do all your good works in secret. And you snapped that rule like a dry twig."

"What was I supposed to do?" Leo pleaded. "Watch the sisters flounder helplessly, and just hope some demon doesn't take a pot shot at them, while they try to figure out how to defend themselves?"

Darryl Morris didn't answer, and the two men leaned against the car, side by side, in uncomfortable silence.

"How bad is it?" Darryl asked finally.

Leo shrugged helplessly. "If the prophecy is right, then they're the Charmed Ones, the most powerful witches in the world. And they haven't got the first idea - not a clue - of what they can actually do."

"Swell."

"I have to protect them, Darryl. Yes, I took a risk, but it was necessary. These aren't your average, ordinary, run of the mill witches."

"Man, I just hope you know what you're doing," Darryl sighed. "Because when your bosses find out about this, they are not gonna be happy."

Leo sighed. "No," he agreed sadly. "They're not."

"So, what happens now?"

"I start working with them tomorrow. They don't entirely trust me yet. Except for Paige," Leo added quickly.

"Oh? And why is that? Turn on the charm with her, did you?"

"Darryl - she's not just a witch. She doesn't have the same father as the other sisters. And I'm pretty sure that her father is a White Lighter."

Darryl stared at Leo in astonishment. "Are you sure about that?"

"Sure enough that I'm going to ask you to find out who her father really is."

"Damn. Half witch, half White Lighter." Darryl gave a low whistle of dismay. "You realize what that means?"

"It means our lives are about to get a lot more interesting."

Darryl snorted. "No, you mean _your_ life is about to get a lot more interesting," he retorted. "Don't make this my problem, Wyatt. I got troubles of my own."

"It already is your problem," Leo pointed out, "Otherwise you wouldn't be standing out here like a tree somebody forgot to water."

Darryl's expression of practiced disdain melted away, replaced by one of genuine concern. "Just - be careful, okay?" he cautioned. "And above all, keep a low profile. You and the sisters both. If demons start figuring out that the Charmed Ones have taken up residence in San Francisco, things could get ugly around here. Real ugly. Real fast."

Leo nodded in sober agreement. "I know. But this is going to take a while."

"Yeah, they lost their grandma. I get that."

"Not just their grandmother, Darryl. The mother died when they were all just kids. The father is out of the picture. The grandmother is the one who pretty much raised them. They've just lost the only real parental figure they've ever known. Until they get past that, their interest in the craft is going to be shaky at best."

Darryl shook his head sadly. "This is gonna go real well, isn't it?"

Leo clapped a hand on Darryl's shoulder in parting; there was no point trying to answer that question. "See you tomorrow," he said, and as he started to walk back to the truck, called over his shoulder, "And see what you can dig up on Paige's father."

"Yeah, like I work for you now?" Darryl protested, but Leo only smiled and gave a friendly wave. He clambered back into the cab of his pickup truck, started the engine and then slowly pulled away into the street, leaving the sullen detective alone with his thoughts.


	2. Chapter 2

It was late afternoon, and the sun had already disappeared from the dull, steely-grey winter sky. An eerie twilight was setting over the old house on Prescott Street. Piper sat morosely at the battered old rolltop desk in the atrium, staring at a large, heavy manila folder filled with her grandmother's financial papers. She let out a ragged sigh, gathered up the folder in her arms, and headed to the dining room. Phoebe and Paige were sitting at the table, awaiting her expectantly. Piper tossed the folder onto the table with another deep sigh, then sat down.

"So, how bad is it?" Paige asked, after a long, awkward moment had passed.

"Not as bad as I thought," Piper admitted, and opened the folder. "Most of Grams' medical care was covered by hospice, and her last hospital stay was covered by insurance. All her outstanding bills and debts have now been settled, so tomorrow I go to the bank, and close out her account."

She pulled a sheet of paper out from the pile. "There's not much left," she lamented. "But Grams' will said that in the event of mom's passing, any remaining assets should be divided equally among the surviving grandchildren. Which means, tomorrow afternoon I will have cashier's checks for each of you, in the amount of roughly twenty thousand dollars apiece. You can't retire on it, but it will make a nice little windfall."

Piper's voice was completely leaden as she relayed the information. For the moment, she was simply too exhausted to burst into tears.

"And the house?" Paige was almost afraid to ask.

"Transfer of title has been accepted. I'll have to go over after I'm done at the bank, to have the documents drawn up and signed. I'm having the deed put in all three of our names. Thank God Grams had the house listed in her schedule of property in her will, otherwise, this would be a total nightmare."

"Piper, isn't there any of this work we can do for you?" Phoebe asked.

Piper shook her head wearily. "I'm the executor of the estate, and my grandmother's legal representative. I'm the only one with the proper authorization to take care of this."

"There must be something we can do to help."

"There is. Someone needs to call the phone and utility companies, and transfer the accounts from Grams to us."

"I'll take care of that," Paige volunteered.

"We also need someone to work with Leo on a schedule of repairs for the house, starting with, getting the washer and dryer replaced."

"Leave it to me," Phoebe declared.

"And when you call the gas company to have that account transferred, we need to have the oil tank refilled. Oh, and bleed off all the radiators, too, now that we're actually going to be living here."

"Consider it done," Phoebe nodded.

"You might want to wait until Leo's here to do the radiators, in case any of the valves turn out to be faulty," Piper cautioned.

"How are we going to pay Leo for the new appliances, and all the work he's about to do for us?" Paige asked.

Piper shrugged. "When we get the bills, we each take a third."

"Would it be easier for you, if Phoebe and I forfeited the estimated amounts from our inheritance? That way, we can just write Leo one check. I wouldn't mind," Paige suggested.

"Let's worry about that some other day," Piper decided. "I'm already exhausted, just thinking about everything I have to do tomorrow."

"You're not really going back to work tomorrow night, are you?"

"Yeah, but it won't be a late night, I'm not closing. I should be done by eight."

"God, Piper, that is going to be one long day," Phoebe murmured.

"Tell me about it. But unless you guys found a spell in the Book of Shadows that magically prints money, we all need to go back to work, and the sooner the better."

Paige reached across the table, taking Piper's hand in hers, and squeezed it gently.

"Look. Tomorrow's gonna suck. We all know that," she said. "Why don't we plan that Phoebe and I will meet you at Quake around 7. We'll hang out at the bar until you're done, and as soon as you're off shift, we can all sit down, have a little toast to Grams, and then go home together."

"I would like that very much," Piper nodded, and then sighed heavily, for the third time in as many minutes. "Because, yeah. Tomorrow is really going to suck." She managed a weak smile. "I just hope I don't walk into the kitchen and see a bunch of magical creatures preparing meals in there, instead of the usual staff."

"Wouldn't that be cool, though?" Paige grinned.

"No, it would not be cool," Piper retorted.

"Can I ask you guys something?" Phoebe said. "What did you think, about what happened today?"

"Well, it was definitely weird," Piper answered after a moment's thought. "But way better than seeing the Shades, or Smokes, or whatever the hell those creepy things were."

"Leo says the world has always been like this, and we just couldn't see it before. It's… unsettling," Phoebe confessed.

"I kinda liked it," Paige said shyly. "I mean, yeah, it was weird, like Piper said. But it wasn't bad."

"It just makes me wonder what else is out there that we don't know about."

"Made your head explode a little bit?" Piper smiled tolerantly.

"Well, yeah," Phoebe answered. "I mean, now we can see the magical world, but we don't really know the first thing about it."

"We have the Book of Shadows," Paige pointed out. "It's kind of like a field guide to magical creatures."

"What is it, Pheebs?" Piper asked, sensing that her sister's discomfort ran more deeply than a simple rude awakening.

"I don't know," Phoebe sighed. "I just feel… a little off after seeing all that. I told you guys that just before I flew out here, I felt like I had just woken up from a dream, that I was really awake for the first time in a long time. And that's kind of like what this feels like. I get that roller-coaster feeling in the pit of my stomach. That everything I thought I knew was just wrong."

"I think we're all feeling a little bit like that," Piper admitted.

"If this is real, then maybe what I've been living all this time was an illusion. Scares me a little," Phoebe said quietly.

"You're worried that you really were under a spell," Paige said.

"It's more than that. If I can be controlled or influenced so easily… then how can I trust if anything I see is real? How do I know I'm not under a spell of illusion right now?"

"I could pinch you," Paige grinned.

"I'm serious, Paige."

"Honey, I know. I'm not trying to make fun of you."

"What do you think, Piper?"

Piper hesitated a moment before answering. "All this morning, I kept thinking, is this the world that mom and Grams always saw? And if it was, why didn't they tell us? Ever? Why do we have to find out everything from a complete stranger? Learning about magic wasn't my issue. How we found out about it, well… it just doesn't sit right."

"You don't trust Leo?"

"I don't know," she sighed in vexation. "Jury's still out. Maybe he is what he says he is. But we still really know nothing about him. I just wish I could be sure."

"So, what do we do?"

Piper closed up the manila folder in front of her with deliberate care.

"Knowledge is power," she said finally. "Grams says, read the Book of Shadows. So let's read the damn thing. Cover to cover. See if we can use it as a map to help us find our bearings."

"That's one big book, Piper," Phoebe objected.

"I know," Piper agreed. "And all three of us need to know everything that's inside it, back to front. Right now it's the only bias-free source of information we have, to confirm if any of the stuff Leo is telling us is really true or not."

Phoebe frowned. "If you don't trust him, then do we want to let him into the house? Even to make repairs?"

Paige had a happy epiphany. "Maybe we can use the book to find out if we should trust Leo," she suggested.

"How do you mean?" Piper asked.

"Well, the book is full of spells and potions, right? Maybe there's a truth serum in there somewhere? Something that would compel him to answer all our questions honestly."

Piper and Phoebe exchanged a dubious glance.

"I suppose there might be something," Piper said slowly. "What, you're planning to slip a truth drug into his morning coffee?"

"Why not?" Paige countered. "We know we need help with magic. Leo's offering. The question is whether or not to trust him, and that decision rests with us."

Piper thought that over for a long minute.

"Okay," she conceded. "Yes, I would like to know whether or not we can trust Leo. I'm not sure I can make any decisions about our magical life, until we figure him out first. So, since both of you are temporarily unemployed," she declared, her voice finally showing some life at last, "You can employ yourselves for the next day or so, looking for Paige's truth drug in the Book of Shadows. And preferably, find it before you meet me at Quake tomorrow night."

Paige grinned. "We're on the job."

"Good. Two more things," Piper decided. "One, at least for tomorrow, yes, Phoebe, we give Leo access to the house. Get him started on the repair jobs. If he wants to talk about magic, tell him we'll get back to him on that. Two, from now on, let's keep the Book of Shadows locked up tight somewhere. We should only have it out if one of us is reading it. Otherwise, we should have it tucked away, out of sight, under lock and key. It's not just our inheritance. Right now, that book is the most important thing we own. We need to treat it like it's the Crown Jewels."

"Why not leave it in the attic, in the trunk?" Paige suggested. "We can always get a big padlock, or something, to secure it."

"That will be fine, for now," Piper agreed. "Until we can think of something better. And now that I'm thinking about it, I want to add a third thing to the list."

"Which is?"

"Until we know who we can trust, we say nothing to anyone about us being witches. No mentioning witchcraft or magical powers. Not a word."

"What, I can't even tell Glen?" Paige was crestfallen.

"Nobody, Paige. I mean it. Until we know for certain what we're dealing with - no friends, no boyfriends, no co-workers, nobody. The Wicca broom stays in the closet until further notice."

Piper looked at both her sisters severely. "You guys understand? Tell no one."

Phoebe shrugged. "Fine by me. I just got back into town, so it's not like I have anyone to tell anyway."

"Paige?"

"Yeah, okay," Paige agreed reluctantly.

"Good. I know this is all very exciting and new, and you want to rush out and tell people - but for now, for right now, our best safety lies in silence. Once we have a better handle on the situation, we can decide who to invite into our circle of trust. But for now, we keep it quiet."

"Understood," Phoebe declared. "Is there anything else we can do for you?"

"Yeah," Piper nodded solemnly. "Go order us a pizza, or something. It's almost dinner time, and I'm way too tired to even think about cooking anything tonight."

Piper did in fact retire very early that night, pleading she had a long day ahead of her; so after dinner, Phoebe and Paige curled up together on the couch with the Book of Shadows, covered in a large heavy quilt and with the fireplace on. They settled for just skimming through the pages, as they had done the day before; but with the intention of making it all the way through the entire book this time. When they got to the page that described the Shades, Paige reached out and gently stopped Phoebe's hand from going any further.

"What is it?" Phoebe asked.

"We need to talk."

Phoebe stared at Paige for a moment, and then sighed heavily. "Yeah. I guess we do."

"It's not what you think."

After hesitating a moment, Phoebe set the book open on the coffee table to its current page, and gave her sister her full attention.

"When we saw the Shades yesterday…" Paige began haltingly, "The one following you was larger than any of the others. Much larger."

"Yeah. I noticed."

"The larger the Shade, the deeper the hurt. I'm not trying to read you, Phoebe, but even without using my powers, I can sense all the agony that's boiling up inside you."

As Phoebe stirred restlessly, Paige quickly added, "I'm not trying to make you confess to anything. I just know you're hurting. Badly. And I wanted to know, is there anything I can do to help you."

Phoebe shrank into a ball of misery, drawing her legs up and resting her chin on her knees.

"Talk to me, Phoebe, please," Paige pleaded.

"Help me," Phoebe said tonelessly. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm beyond help." She shook her head in self-disapproval. "Sorry. I'll try to drop the pity party. I'm just really in a black mood tonight."

"I know. So what can I do to help?"

Phoebe stared off into the distance, hugging herself tightly, not answering; Paige could tell that her sister was struggling desperately to find the courage to talk about what was really troubling her. She waited patiently while Phoebe's thoughts and feelings churned inside her like a cauldron.

Finally, Phoebe let out a ragged sigh. "I've been on a downward spiral for a long time now. I've known it. I've felt it. I pretended not to notice, for a long time. But lately, I've really tried to push back against it. But now… after what we've learned about ourselves…"

She trailed off, unsure of how to continue.

"That there might be something more sinister behind it?" Paige prompted gently. "Maybe even demonic?"

"This is going to sound so terrible," Phoebe groaned.

"I'm not going to judge you, Phoebe."

"When I left home, it wasn't just because Grams and I weren't getting along. Well, I wasn't getting along with any of you. That was all my own fault. But I left because I was scared."

"Scared of what?"

"The thought that kept going through my head was… if I don't leave, I'm next."

"You mean, you would be the next sister to die."

A huge tear spilled down Phoebe's cheek. "It was ridiculous. It didn't even mean anything. But I couldn't shut it off. It was stuck in my head, like a broken record. And I couldn't talk to anybody about it, especially not you."

"Oh, honey," Paige murmured in dismay.

"I was such a monster to you guys. I often wondered if you might actually be relieved that I was finally gone. It's funny - I can't remember us ever doing anything magical when we were little. But we were born witches, so we must have done, right? But I remember the night Grams cast the binding spell. Vividly. I had no idea until a couple of days ago what it was she actually did. But I remember her coming down the stairs that night, and she looked right at me, so sad and so… disappointed. Like there was nothing I could do, to please her, or make anything right, ever again."

"Phoebe, you were six years old," Paige said quietly. "Something terrible happened to you, before you were even old enough to understand how terrible it really was."

"That's no excuse," Phoebe shook her head. "Even if I did have a demon on my shoulder, whispering in my ear, it's still me who has to decide whether or not to listen. Yeah, I lost my mom. I lost my sister. And then you came along - and it's like you were meant to be a replacement for my sister. I know that isn't true, it's ridiculous to even think that, but - all I could think of was, I just wanted my mom and my sister to come home. And they never would. I just - I don't think I ever knew how to deal with that. I don't think Grams did, either. She must have been suffering worse than any of us. But I was too young to have any idea what was going on with her."

Phoebe sighed again. "As soon I could, I left home, and made a beeline for New York. I went there with the intent to look for my dad, but really…"

She visibly winced, as memories floated just under the surface of her consciousness. "I still can't talk about it. I just really saw an ugly side of myself while I was there. Something… evil. There was a part of me that really enjoyed causing other people to suffer. I had no idea I could even be like that. I was… oh my God, I wish I'd never left home," she said brokenly, and hot tears began spilling down both cheeks.

She sat there, hugging herself tightly, not actually sobbing but her breaths were coming in ragged gasps. Paige wanted desperately to reach out to her, to hold her and comfort her, but Phoebe wasn't done with her story yet, and she wanted to hear the rest.

"The last couple of times I talked to Grams on the phone, it was almost nice," Phoebe continued at last, once her tears had slowed, her voice low and choked. "We were really civil to each other. She must have known how sick she was then. She kept asking me to come home. She almost talked me into it, a couple of times. I really wish I'd listened to her. But then - she was just gone - and I had this sense that everything was ruined, for good. All the evil I'd done could never be put right. I wanted to come for the funeral, but - I just couldn't. I was so sick at heart I couldn't even move. That's as close as I ever came to taking my own life. And that's not someplace I ever want to be again. I did go see dad after that. I had managed to track him down by that point. But - he was so vehement in wanting nothing to do with us, now I wonder if he doesn't have a demon sitting on his shoulder, too."

Slowly, Phoebe unwound herself from the tight little ball she had curled herself into. "I honestly don't know if there's anything I can do to make things right, ever again. I just know, if I kept on going the direction I was headed, I would have become a demon. Literally, a demon. I don't want that. Maybe I'm not a good person, but I don't want to be an evil person. So… here I am. I find out I'm a witch, and maybe all these things that have been bubbling around inside my head aren't so crazy after all. And I have no idea what to do next."

She gave Paige a despairing look. "So, what do you think? Was it a mistake to come home?"

Paige shook her head. "You know better than to ask me that."

"I guess what I'm really asking is, have I screwed up so badly that things can't ever be good between us. I want to make things right. I just don't know how."

Paige pursed her lips. "I won't lie. You really hurt us, Phoebe," she admitted reluctantly. "You just got up and left. No goodbyes. No phone calls. We didn't hear from you for months. Grams was frantic something terrible had happened to you. It was only when she talked to dad that we even knew you were in New York. We all felt, were we really so terrible, you wanted nothing to do with us? You didn't want to be part of our family? That hurt, Phoebe. More than anything else you did. And it wasn't just me you hurt. You hurt Grams. You hurt Piper. It was almost like you'd died. It was kind of worse than if you had died."

Phoebe chewed on that bitter pill for several long, hard moments. "Should I leave?" she asked in a barely audible voice.

"You say you've been feeling the darkness gathering around you for a long time, and you've been trying to push back against it. Your moral compass isn't broken, Phoebe, you just need to trust it more. I think when you decided to fly home, that might have been the best decision you've made in years."

"Do you want me to be here?"

"Only if YOU want to be here. So, you have to ask yourself, what is it you really want."

"I want to make things right with you," Phoebe declared, without hesitation. "I don't hate you, Paige. I swear, I never did. I was nasty to you in ways I'll never forgive myself for -"

"Phoebe, I couldn't care less what happened when we were kids. That's ancient history. It doesn't matter."

"It does matter," Phoebe cried. "Because I am NOT running away this time," she vowed, with sudden heat. "No matter what the consequences are, I'm going to face them."

Paige nodded solemnly. "Good. Because we don't want you to run away, either. We want our sister back. We need our sister back."

"Then what do I do, Paige? How do I make things right?"

"Stay with us," Paige pleaded. "The one thing Grams wanted more than anything else, was for the three of us to recapture our powers and look out for one another. To be a family again. It was literally her dying wish. You can make everything right if you stay with us."

"You guys would even still want me?" Phoebe croaked.

"Phoebe, there's one thing you really need to get through that thick skull of yours. Piper and I love you. We don't care what boneheaded things you've done, or even what you think you've done. We will always accept you. And we will always forgive you. You're our sister. We're your family. We will always be here for you. We need you, Phoebe. There will never be a time when that's not true. We need you. So don't run away any more. Be part of our family. Stay at home. Stay with us."

Phoebe burst into tears again, and Paige pulled her close. "Come here," she murmured, and hugged her tightly.

Phoebe's crying fit did not last nearly as long as the first. The two sisters lay together on the couch, entwined in each other's arms. Phoebe rested her cheek against Paige's shoulder. Finally, she let out a ragged sigh, the worst of her grief expelled.

"Feel better now?" Paige asked.

"Yeah," Phoebe admitted, her voice still raspy from crying.

"So, what do you think? Wanna stay here with your sisters, and learn how to be a truly awesome witch?"

"Oh, hell, yes."

"Good. You know why tonight is such a great night?"

"No, why?"

"Because tonight, I found out my big sister doesn't hate me after all. And even better, she wants to stay with me, and live in this big old house with me. There's nothing in the world that makes me happier, knowing that."

She grinned at Phoebe. "See what you did? You made it right."

Phoebe managed to both laugh and sob at the same time. Paige hugged her again, and planted a quick kiss on Phoebe's forehead.

They lay side by side for a long while, not speaking, each simply enjoying the gift of the other. Finally, Phoebe managed a wry grin. "Piper is right. You really are very sweet," she said quietly.

"Aww."

"Totally nuts. But sweet."

Paige giggled. "Guilty as charged."

Phoebe giggled too, a great burden finally lifted from her heart.

"So, did you want to finish looking at the book tonight?" Paige asked. "Or do you want to turn in?"

"We need to find that spell for Piper."

"We have all day tomorrow to do that," Paige reminded her.

"Let's do it tomorrow, then," Phoebe pleaded. "I'm pretty wiped."

"No doubt," Paige agreed solemnly. "You jettisoned a Titanic-sized piece of emotional baggage tonight. That took some doing."

"I couldn't have done it without my baby sister," Phoebe murmured gratefully.

By unspoken consent, they got ready to go upstairs. Paige turned off the gas to the fireplace, and carefully closed the Book of Shadows so she could take it back to the attic. Phoebe quickly folded the quilt and draped it over the couch.

As they headed up the stairs together, Phoebe grinned at Paige.

"So, social worker, huh?"

"That's what I'm aiming for," Paige nodded.

"Why do I get the feeling, you're going to be a great one?"

"I have my moments," Paige quipped. "In my own magically awesome way."

The two sisters laughed happily together as they made their way up the stairs.

The following morning, Piper's day began to unfold as she had predicted; numbingly exhausting, but thankfully no worse. Both her visits to the bank and to the lawyer's office went quickly and surprisingly trouble-free. Even her shift at the restaurant was just busy enough to distract her, but not enough to make the pace seem frantic. As the dinner rush was winding down, one of the waitresses sidled up to Piper.

"Who's that sitting at the bar with your sister?" she asked curiously.

Piper glanced over in the direction of the bar, and saw Phoebe and Paige sitting side by side on a pair of stools, dressed in modest LBDs and heels, laughing and talking excitedly with each other. For a moment, Piper stood transfixed by the sight. Both her sisters looked radiant and joyful, like they hadn't a care in the world. She was almost envious.

"That's … my other sister, Phoebe," she murmured, almost disbelieving.

"Oh, I didn't know you had another sister," the waitress smiled apologetically.

"She's been in New York," Piper answered distractedly. "She just got home."

"Look, you're supposed to go off shift in twenty minutes anyway, why don't you go join them? Claire and I have got this," the waitress urged. "Go spend some time with your family."

"I think I will," Piper smiled gratefully. "Thanks, Skye."

After checking on the last few dinner orders, Piper strolled into the bar area, and took a seat at a nearby empty table. Seeing her, Phoebe and Paige hurried over to join her, still laughing and giggling.

"Hey, Piper. How was work?"

"One of my dishwashers is an octopus," Piper informed them solemnly. "Or at least, some magical creature that looks like an octopus. I thought he was just really good at his job, and it turns out it's because he's a freakin' cephalopod!"

"Well, at least he's not a demon, right?" Paige grinned.

"I hope he's not a demon," Piper retorted dryly. "But my guess is, demons have better things to do than wash dishes at restaurants. Looks like you two had a good day," she added, changing the subject.

Phoebe set an extra glass of white wine she was carrying next to Piper. "We had a great day," she declared.

"Did you now?"

"And we have lots of news to share," Paige added excitedly.

"Really."

"So, what would you like first? The good news, or the good news?"

Piper raised an eyebrow. "What, there's no bad news? Is that allowed?"

"No bad news tonight," Phoebe assured her. "In fact, we are about to turn your frown upside down."

Piper glanced at one sister, then the other, with a bemused smile on her face. "Okay, what's going on?" she demanded suspiciously. "Are you guys taking happy pills, or something?"

Phoebe and Paige looked at each other, and burst into another peal of laughter.

"No, no, nothing like that," Phoebe answered, her grin turning into a wistful smile. "Paige and I had a little heart to heart last night. That's all."

Piper sat up a little straighter, this was an admission she'd not been expecting. "Oh?"

"We just talked," Paige demurred.

"Paige used her social worker skills on me," Phoebe elaborated somewhat. "Kinda cleared the air between us."

Paige and Phoebe clasped hands in front of their sister in a show of solidarity.

"We know you've been worrying we wouldn't get along," Paige said quietly. "We just want you to know, you don't have to worry about us any more."

"I'm your big sister," Piper pointed out. "I'm always going to worry about you."

"Yeah, well, you'll have to find something else to worry about now instead."

"That is good news," Piper agreed, taking a slow sip from her wine glass. The alcohol had an immediate soporific effect, and she could feel an agreeable warmth spreading across the inside of her stomach.

"So, are you ready for more good news?" Phoebe grinned.

Piper set her wine glass down. "Hit me," she declared.

"We now have a brand new washer and dryer."

"Awesome," Piper breathed a sigh of relief. "Now I actually feel safe moving in."

"The utilities, the heating, and the phone are all now in your name. Heating oil is being delivered tomorrow - and there should be enough to get us through the rest of the winter."

"That's terrific, thanks, Phoebe."

"Did she just smile?" Paige asked Phoebe, gently teasing Piper.

"Kinda looked like one," Phoebe said with mock solemnity.

"All right, you two, knock it off," Piper chided gently. "Did you talk with Leo?"

"He's going to do wiring on my bedroom next, since I guess it's all funky," Phoebe said. "But he's also going to work up an estimate for us on insulating the attic and putting in a heater."

"You didn't commit us to that project, I hope," Piper said, worried about the expense.

"No, he's drawing that up as a separate project. He'll let us know the projections, and then we can decide when or if to do it."

"Great." Piper relaxed again. "Did he say anything about magic?"

"He asked where you were, and I told him the truth. He just smiled and said he would talk to us about magic when all three of the sisters are together."

"Speaking of magic," Paige broke in with an affected air, "I have the best news of all tonight, thank you very much."

"Which would be?" Piper found herself grinning.

"We found a truth spell in the Book of Shadows."

"Seriously." She cast a surreptitious glance around the room, no one was close enough to overhear their conversation.

"Yup. It's not a serum, though. It's just an incantation."

Piper frowned in puzzlement. "Then how's it supposed to work?"

"It's actually pretty cool. It's a time limited spell, so after we cast it, anyone we talk to for the next twenty-four hours, they have to answer truthfully if we ask them a question."

"There's one catch," Phoebe cautioned. "If anyone asks us a question, we have to answer truthfully, too. In fact, we'll be magically compelled to do so."

Piper made a face. "Ooh. I don't like the sound of that."

"It's okay, Piper, after the twenty-four hours is up, the spell reverts automatically, and nobody remembers anything they told us."

"We'll remember everything, though, because we're the ones who will be casting the spell."

"Please tell me you didn't already do this," Piper pleaded.

"No, no, we were going to wait for you," Paige assured her. "We wanted you to have a chance to ask Leo questions, too, and unless you say the spell with us, you can't do that."

"We think you should ask him out," Phoebe grinned.

Piper rolled her eyes. "Oh, please don't start with that," she begged.

Paige's expression grew thoughtful. "Honey, you spent the last two years of your life taking care of Grams," she pointed out. "It's time you started getting your own life back."

"I'll get around to it," Piper demurred, trying to dance away from the subject.

"Will you?" Paige asked pointedly. "Piper, you're twenty-eight years old, and that is way too young to be an old maid. When's the last time you even went out on a date? I get that you're not a casual sex girl, and that's perfectly fine. But you'll never find your forever guy, if you're not even willing to look. You kinda buried yourself in caregiving intentionally. Now it's time for you to take care of yourself. You're allowed to be happy," she was almost pleading. "Both your sisters want to see you with somebody."

"Okay, okay," Piper held up her hands in a gesture of submission. "But one crisis at a time. Let's find out whether Leo is someone we can trust first. We can worry about the rest later."

"So, how did everything go with the lawyer?"

"The house is now in all three of our names. I can show you guys the deed later. And once we get home, I have cashier's checks for each of you."

"Great, I need to open a bank account here," Phoebe nodded.

"Have you decided what you're going to do with your windfall?"

"I'm seriously thinking of making a down payment on a used car," Phoebe answered. "I want to be able to get around, without having to ask you guys to drive me every place. It will certainly make life easier to have my own vehicle while I'm job hunting. I have an appointment at the temp agency this Thursday," she added, "so I need to brush up my résumé. Actually, more like take a blowtorch to it," she grimaced.

"I'm sure you'll be fine," Piper said soothingly, taking another long sip from her wine glass.

"Would you like another glass?" Paige asked. "I'm only drinking mineral water tonight. I'll volunteer to be designated driver."

"I just might do that," Piper nodded, and she smiled appreciatively. "Thanks, Paige."

That night, a huge, howling thunderstorm roared up angrily out of the south. The system had not appeared in any weather forecast, and its sudden appearance was as unlikely as its fury. The center of the storm quickly settled on the suburbs just to the north of San Francisco, and for most of the evening, it lashed the streets and buildings with torrential sheets of rain, bolts of lightning and constant rolling thunder. If one were inclined to believe in such things, it might have seemed like a group of demons had gathered together to vent their collective impotent fury against the city. But in the old house on Prescott street, the three Halliwell sisters slept through the night blissfully, completely unaware of the storm's presence. Due to the lateness of the hour, it went unnoticed that the immediate area surrounding the Halliwell manor barely received more than a light drizzle - almost as if a magical shield was protecting the house from the worst of the elements.


	3. Chapter 3

_Canonical note: the truth spell used by Phoebe and Paige first appeared in the "Charmed" season one story "The Truth Is Out There... And It Hurts", written by Chris Levinson and Zack Estrin._

* * *

The following morning was bright and clear, in marked contrast to the fury of the overnight storm that had raged only a few hours before. Despite the icy chill in the air, Piper was sitting on the front steps, huddled in her warmest jacket and woolen hat, drinking coffee from an insulated mug. She was watching the rose bush at the far side of the house - or rather, she was watching the fleeting forms that darted out from beneath it and back again, often accompanied by a faint cackle of laughter.

The sound of an approaching vehicle made her look up, and she saw Leo Wyatt's battered pickup truck pull up alongside the house. He got out of the cab and gave Piper a broad grin.

"Good morning," he greeted her, when he was halfway up the steps. "A bit cold to be sitting out here, isn't it?"

Piper shifted to one side, to give Leo room to join her.

"I have gnomes living in my rose bushes," she informed him. "And I'm not sure what creeps me out more - the fact that I can see them, or that they've always been there when I couldn't see them."

She took another long swig from her coffee cup.

"Yeah," Leo sighed, casting a glance back at the rose bush. "It's fine. They won't hurt anything."

"I'm seeing magical creatures almost everywhere I look now. And I can't help wondering which ones I need to worry about, and which ones are harmless."

Leo took a seat beside her on the steps.

"Well, the good news is, most of the ones you see are in the harmless category," he assured her. "Especially if you see them out in the open like this. In fact, most of them aren't much different than people. They're just going about their business. The dangerous ones hide in the dark places and don't announce themselves."

"So, what, don't look under the bed, or in the closet at night, without a flashlight?"

Leo smiled. "They're a little more subtle than that. How are you doing? A little better than when I saw you two days ago, I hope."

Piper shrugged indifferently. "When Grams died, I thought, well, at least the worst is over now. Life can get back to normal. No more nasty surprises. So much for that, huh?"

"Do you really think learning about magic is a nasty surprise?"

"No," Piper sighed. "I just wish Grams would have told me. That's all."

"I'm sorry. I know this must be hard for you."

"It's just weird. I went through this whole giddy 'who's going to take care of me now' panic attack, even though I've been out on my own for years. It's just - when my Grams died, I never felt so completely... alone."

"That's the paradox of grief. There are few experiences in life that make you feel more isolated. But there's no experience more universal. You share it with everyone who's ever lived."

"And if that wasn't enough, then I find out I'm a witch - and that just multiplied the overall weirdness by a factor I can't even begin to calculate."

"Well, now that you've unbound your magical powers, I can't promise you the weirdness will ever go away," Leo cautioned. "But I can promise, it will get easier to roll with the weird."

Piper snorted mirthlessly and took another sip from her coffee mug.

"It does make me wonder how my sisters are dealing with it, though," she confided after a moment. "I haven't talked to them about it. Not in any way that matters. I really need to do that." She regarded him carefully. "Can I trust you, Leo Wyatt?"

Before Leo could reply, Piper cut him off with an apparent change of heart. "You know what, never mind," she decided aloud. "But - I am going to ask you that question again later. And I'll expect an honest answer."

"As you like. Would you rather we talked about house repairs?"

"Sure. Yeah. That would be better."

"I thought I would start on the re-wiring in Phoebe's bedroom today, as long as she doesn't mind me being in there for three or four hours."

"We'll need to see if she's up yet. We got in kind of late last night."

"Nothing wrong, I hope."

"No, no, we were just sitting around and talking. We met at the restaurant where I work. We were supposed to just have a glass of wine and go home. But then we kind of closed the place down," she admitted with a smile. "It's the first time I had a chance to sit and talk with both my sisters since - well, since we were kids, really. Now we're all grown up, and it's so strange, it's almost like I'm meeting them for the first time. Especially Phoebe. She'd been gone for so long."

"But it's good to have them both home?"

"It feels wonderful," Piper declared emphatically. "It feels - right. You know what, it's freakin' cold out here," she declared abruptly, and gave the young man a shy smile. "Can I offer you a cup of coffee?"

"Sounds great, thank you."

They got up, and as Piper turned to step back onto the porch, there was an especially turbulent rustle underneath the rose bush.

"Hey, you stupid gnomes!" Piper scolded them. "Behave yourselves! Don't make me come out there with a broom - or something."

"I don't think you can chase them," Leo said uncertainly. "They're incredibly fast, and they've been known to disappear if -"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Piper grumbled sourly. "Come on in."

As they made their way into the kitchen, Leo looked around approvingly. "You've been busy," he noted. "The house is really starting to look like someone lives here now."

"Well, as Paige says, the first step was to stop thinking of this house as our grandmother's place, and start thinking of it as our own," Piper said, reaching into the cupboard for a spare mug. "But there's a drawback to that approach. Now my head is just a buzzing beehive of ideas for every room. Cream or sugar?"

"Just a little cream, thanks."

As Piper rummaged in the refrigerator for the cream, Paige Matthews stumbled wearily into the kitchen, eyes still swollen with sleep, dark hair tousled, wearing only an oversized t-shirt and yawning expansively.

"Hey, Piper, where's the -" Paige broke off abruptly as she caught sight of Leo. "Awk! Boys in the house! Excuse me," she yelped in surprise, and promptly disappeared. A moment later, Piper and Leo could hear a set of light footfalls, making a hasty retreat up the stairwell.

Piper grinned as she poured a little cream into the mug. "You spooked the local wildlife," she informed him.

Leo returned the grin. "I guess I did."

Piper poured hot coffee in over the cream, stirred it briskly and then handed the mug over to Leo. "Don't worry. She'll be back. Hopefully wearing clothes this time."

"Yeah, wearing clothes in mixed company is generally a good idea. Thank you," he added, hoisting the mug to his lips.

Piper made herself comfortable on one of the bar stools. "So, Leo, before you get started on your house work, I'm going to give you a little bit of the third degree this morning," she announced.

"Third degree?" Leo frowned, not understanding.

Piper sighed. "I don't know how else to say this, so I'll be blunt. I don't need to know anything about you personally, if you're just the handyman who's helping me fix up the house. But, if you're going to be a magical mentor for myself and my sisters, then I need to know you a lot better than I do."

"That's fair enough."

"So I'm going to give you a job interview. And you need to convince me to trust you."

"You can ask me anything you want."

Piper noted that Leo seemed completely at ease with the idea of interrogation. That was a good sign, or so she hoped.

"You said before that we aren't the only witches you've mentored," Piper began.

"Well, mentor isn't really the right word," Leo protested mildly. "I know a little bit about magic because I have been a guardian to other witches, yes. But it's not like I'm a professor of magic or anything."

Piper raised an eyebrow. "Then, what exactly is it that you do?"

Leo sighed and put down his coffee mug. "Piper, the part you haven't figured out yet is, once you and your sisters have mastery over magic, there's almost nothing you won't be able to do. You have powers that even most magical beings can only dream of. You'll be able to do literally anything you want. And sometimes… when there are no limits to what you can do… it makes choices more difficult, not easier."

Piper frowned in puzzlement. "So, what, you're the conscience sitting on our shoulders?"

"Yeah. Sort of. It's just - when you can do literally anything, it's not always easy to know what the correct path is. My role is to be a spiritual advisor. I'm here to help you and your sisters stay on the path. The way forward is going to get pretty murky at times. I'm here to light the path for you."

"So, you don't actually teach us magic, then."

"No. You have the Book of Shadows for that."

Piper frowned suspiciously. "How do you know about the Book of Shadows?"

"Well, for one thing, I saw the book laying on the floor of the attic the first time I was over here," Leo permitted himself a sly grin. "You really need to be more careful with that, by the way. Your family grimoire is something of a legend in magical circles. Some of your ancestors -"

"Hold it right there. What do you mean, a legend?"

"Most witches create grimoires for themselves," Leo tried to explain. "But it's actually rather rare for a book of magic to span more than two or three generations, at best. Members of your family have been contributing to your book almost without interruption since the late seventeen hundreds. It has a history unlike almost any other book of magic in existence."

Piper covered her face with her hand in a gesture of dismay.

"That's not the answer you were hoping for," Leo sighed.

"Not really, no," Piper admitted. "I have no idea what this whole magic thing is supposed to be about yet. I was really hoping to keep a low profile until I figured it out."

"Well, there, I can help you," Leo assured her. "I want you and your sisters to be able to learn the craft in complete safety - and absolute privacy."

"That's starting to sound a little better," Piper said grudgingly.

"Piper, part of my job in protecting you is making sure you stay off the magical radar. You'll acquire a reputation of your own soon enough. But until then, I want to make sure you and your sisters don't come to the attention of any demons, sorcerers or other malevolent magical beings. I don't want them to know anything about you. At least, not until you're able to protect yourselves."

Piper felt a shudder of unease crawling up her spine. "And you think we'll need to protect ourselves."

"I know you will," Leo said grimly.

"Is - is that what happened to my mother and my sister? Were they killed by demons?"

Before Leo could answer, Paige returned to the kitchen, dressed in a simple white blouse, jeans and loafers.

"Okay, let's try this again, now that I'm not naked," she declared with a sheepish grin. "Good morning, Piper, good morning, Leo." Her smile vanished as she looked at their somber faces. "Uhh… am I interrupting something?"

Piper did her best to suppress a grimace. "No, it's fine, Paige, really. Leo and I were just … talking. Well, actually, I was asking him questions about witchcraft," she admitted.

"Aw, come on, Piper," Paige cried in dismay. "You can't ask him that stuff yet. We haven't even had time to cast the truuuu… ohh, crap."

Leo smiled. "Let me guess. You ladies were planning to cast a spell of truth on me."

"What? You KNOW about that?"

"Paige, I may not be a witch, but I've been around them long enough to know the things they do. If you want to cast a truth spell on me, go right ahead. I won't mind, and I won't try to stop you."

Paige regarded him dubiously. "You mean that?"

"If casting the spell will put your mind at ease, and help establish trust between us, then yes, please do it."

Paige looked over at Piper. "What do you think? Should we zap him?"

Piper regarded Leo for a long moment before answering. "No," she said at last, sighing resignedly. "No, we won't cast the spell. Not yet, at any rate." She held up a cautioning hand. "I reserve the right to use the spell at any time, if you give any answer I'm not completely satisfied with," she told Leo. "With or without prior warning."

Leo nodded his assent. "That's fine."

"Or I might cast it on you anyway, just out of spite."

Leo gave Piper a slow grin. "As your spiritual advisor, I'd advise against that approach."

Paige looked from Leo to Piper and back again. "Oh, please tell me you two are not flirting with each other," she groaned. "I haven't even had coffee yet, and you're already flirting with the handyman?"

"I am not flirting with him," Piper protested vehemently.

"Oh, no? What's with all the googly googly eyes then?" Paige retorted.

"Hey, you were the one telling me last night that I should -"

"Never mind what I said," Paige cut her sister off. She turned to Leo. "Okay, Leo, enough of the softball questions. Here's a real question for you."

"Go ahead."

"Do you think my sister's hot?"

"Paige!" Piper remonstrated.

"Hush!" Paige shushed her sister. "Answer me, Leo."

Leo looked up at Paige with a rueful grin. He understood perfectly that the subtext here was a not-so-veiled threat to use the truth spell.

"Yes," he admitted.

"Do you want to go out on a date with her?"

"Yes."

"Okay, then." Paige poured herself a cup of coffee, a self-satisfied grin on her face. "That should table any magical discussions for half a day, at least. I'll give you a shout when Phoebe's up," she called over her shoulder as she left the kitchen.

Piper and Leo sat across from each other, staring at one another in awkward, embarrassed silence.

"You did say it was good to have your sisters at home with you," Leo pointed out, after a long pause.

"Yeah," Piper nodded slowly. "But I may have to kill them first."

Phoebe Halliwell had been laying in her bed half-awake for some time, when she finally decided to rouse herself. With a grunt, she pushed herself upright into a sitting position, and wedged a pillow between her back and the headboard. She stared into her open closet, idly wondering what she should wear for the day. There was still some cleaning to be done, but most of the really heavy duty work was finished. Unless Paige was serious about tackling the attic…

Phoebe decided she really didn't want to crawl out of bed just yet. But she needed to choose an outfit. Experimentally, she crooked a finger at the hinges of the closet door. The door creaked and pushed itself open the rest of the way.

Grinning, Phoebe concentrated and pointed at a pair of jeans on a hanger. Both the hanger and the heavy cloth shuddered as she pointed to them, but neither moved. After thinking for a minute, Phoebe raised her index finger slightly, and the hanger obligingly lifted itself off the dowel rod. Phoebe then crooked her finger towards herself, and the jeans floated out of the closet and deposited themselves at the foot of her bed.

"Very cool," Phoebe murmured, quite pleased with herself.

There was a soft rapping at her bedroom door. "Hey Phoebe, you awake yet?"

Phoebe grinned again at the sound of Paige's voice. "Yeah. Come on in."

Paige pushed the door open, and slipped inside.

"You're just in time to help me choose what to wear today," Phoebe told her baby sister. She pointed to two separate blouses, and each floated out of the closet, and hovered in the air a few feet from where Paige stood.

"What do you think? White or red?"

"White," Paige decided. "That's pretty neat. Can you move anything you want to?"

"I have no idea," Phoebe admitted.

"Hmm. I wonder if you can lift my car."

"Yeah, I don't think I'm ready to try that, just yet," Phoebe laughed.

"Leo's downstairs, he wants to re-wire your bedroom - whenever you're ready."

"Okay. I just want to take a quick shower first. Piper's up?"

"Yeah." Paige made a face. "She and Leo are in the kitchen, talking magic."

"What?" Phoebe hopped out of bed. "But we haven't cast the truth spell yet!"

"I know," Paige sighed. "Fortunately, they're too busy flirting with each other to get very far on the topic."

Phoebe paused, considering. "Well, that is a good thing… isn't it?"

"It is, if we can trust him."

"Should we just go cast the spell right now?"

"What, without Piper?"

"She's too busy flirting, right?"

"Yeah, but if Piper doesn't cast the spell with us, there's no guarantee her questions will be answered honestly," Paige pointed out. "And she won't remember anything afterwards, either."

Phoebe puckered her lips in a moue of annoyance. "Maybe we should just do it anyway."

Paige raised an eyebrow. "Do you really want to have riot act read to you, your first week home?"

"Come on, Paige, the spell has a built-in time limit and then reverses itself. How much harm can there be?"

"You know, you should never ask rhetorical questions like that. God loves to answer them."

"I'm just thinking, if Piper really likes this guy, then we need to know if we can trust him," Phoebe said, becoming serious. "And I don't mean just scoping out a potential boyfriend for our sister. He knows we're witches. He claims to get visits from our dead relatives. What do we know about him, really?"

"Piper did say, she reserved the right to cast the spell on Leo at any time," Paige admitted reluctantly. "With or without telling him first."

"Okay, then." Phoebe quickly threw off her nightdress, and began to shrug herself into her jeans. "Give me two minutes. Then we'll go upstairs and say the spell before we do anything else."

In slightly under thirty seconds, Phoebe was more or less fully dressed, and the two sisters hurried up to the attic. Paige opened the large trunk, and pulled the heavy book from its resting place. She set it down on the floor in front of them, and the two sisters sat themselves in front of it.

"We really need to get a book stand," Paige declared. "You could throw your back out, just lifting this thing."

"We'll put it on the list. Did you remember to bookmark the page the spell was on?"

"Oh, crap." Paige made a face.

"Well, do you at least remember the general place?"

"Yeah, well, sorta, but this is one big book, Phoebe."

As both sisters realized the enormity of the task of re-locating the spell, they both gasped as the book suddenly opened itself - and with a flutter of pages, obligingly opened to the precise location of the spell they wished to find.

"Good grief," Phoebe whispered hoarsely. She exchanged an unnerved look with Paige. "We did both see that, right?"

"Yeah." Paige regarded the book carefully. "Maybe it's a magical indexing system?"

"Maybe it was something else?" Phoebe suggested, then shook her head solemnly. "You know what, let's just go with magical indexing system. Anything else I can think of is way scarier."

They looked at one another and exhaled nervously.

"Okay, are you ready to do this?"

"Are you?" Paige retorted.

Phoebe grinned. "Our very first spell."

"Technically, unbinding our powers was our very first spell," Paige pointed out.

"How about, our first spell as fully powered witches," Phoebe suggested, and Paige nodded in agreement.

Holding hands, they leaned over the book, and recited the words aloud: "For those who want the truth revealed, opened hearts and secrets unsealed, from now until it's now again, after which the memory ends… those who now are in this house, will hear the truth from other's mouths."

After a moment, they unclasped hands and looked at one another expectantly.

"Did - did it work?" Paige asked hesitantly.

"I don't know," Phoebe said uncertainly. "I don't feel any different. Am I supposed to feel different? Is there some way we could test to see if the spell is working?"

As Paige gave her sister a wicked grin, Phoebe groaned in dismay. "You know what, just forget I said that," she pleaded. "I don't need for you to be more ashamed of me than you already are."

Downstairs in the kitchen, Piper had resorted to her standard coping mechanism when situations got difficult or uncomfortable: she began to cook. She quickly set out everything on the kitchen island to prepare Eggs Benedict, buttermilk biscuits and fruit parfait. Leo watched her work admiringly.

"It's amazing how easily you do that."

Piper shrugged. "I always wanted to be a chef. My Grams taught me to cook almost before I could walk."

"So, is that what you do at the restaurant? Prepare meals?"

Piper made a face. "I'm a shift manager. I'm the person who gets to boss the cooks around."

"Do you enjoy that?"

Piper grinned. "What, the bossing around part? Absolutely."

"Is that what you want to do? I mean, do you think you're going to a shift manager at a restaurant for a long time to come."

Piper paused in her preparations for a moment. "I don't know," she answered. "There are some advantages. If I owned my own restaurant, I'd basically be living there all the time. At least while I'm working for someone else, I can go home at the end of the day, and have a life outside work. Not that I've had much of a life recently," she added sadly. "The downsides are obvious. I'm not my own boss. And I'll never get rich working for someone else."

"Have you thought about what you might want to do, down the road?"

"I've been trying not to think about it, actually. The grief counselors all tell me, don't make any big changes in your life, immediately following the death of a loved one. And I think they're right," she sighed. "My concentration has been a fraction of what it normally is. And my short term memory - well, it's almost scary how bad it's been. Makes me worry that I might have had a stroke, or something."

"It won't always be that difficult, Piper. It will get easier. I promise you that."

Piper regarded him carefully. "You sound like someone speaking from first hand experience."

Leo smiled sadly. "Like I said. Grief is the universal experience. We've all lost people we love."

"Who was yours? If you don't mind my asking."

"My wife," Leo admitted, after a moment's hesitation.

Piper was so shocked she dropped her wooden spoon.

"Oh, my god," she murmured. "Oh, Leo, I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

"It's all right. There's no way you could have known."

"How - how long has it been?"

"It's been a while. I think you and I both understand that losing a loved one is an event that displaces you out of time."

"Really, Leo, I'm sorry. I thought maybe it was a parent or a grandparent - I didn't think … forgive me," she pleaded.

"There's nothing to forgive, Piper. It's fine. I promise." He sighed heavily and then managed a subdued smile. "I try not to dwell on things that can't be changed."

Piper continued to stare at Leo, still shocked and dismayed. "What was her name?" she asked finally.

"Lillian."

"Pretty name."

"Yeah. It suited her. Lovely name, lovely woman."

"How long were you married?"

"Forty-five years."

Leo frowned in puzzlement the moment he answered. Piper raised an eyebrow, thinking she couldn't possibly have heard right.

"Sorry, how long?"

"Forty-five years," Leo repeated. "If she were still alive, we would have celebrated our silver anniversary last year."

He looked up at her, utterly confused. "Piper - I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm telling you this."

Slowly, a look of realization - and sinking dismay - crossed Piper's face.

"I think I do," she muttered angrily, and strode out towards the stairwell.

"Phoebe! Paige!" She yelled up the stairs at the top her lungs. "Get your butts down here, NOW!"

"Coming," Paige's voice floated down the stairwell… and far enough away that Piper instantly realized that her sisters were not in their bedrooms - they were in the attic.

A few moments later, Piper's two younger sisters filed into the kitchen, not quite able to conceal the guilty looks on their faces. Piper groaned at them in dismay.

"Oh, you didn't!" she exclaimed angrily.

"Did what?"

"You cast the truth spell!"

Paige and Phoebe looked at one another in astonishment, and then back at Piper.

"How did you know?" Paige asked.

"Because I'm your big sister, and I have eyes in the back of my head! Paige, I've always known what you were going to do before you did, since you were four years old!"

"Don't be angry with her," Phoebe pleaded. "I suggested it."

"And why would you suggest something so boneheaded?!"

"Because we wanted to protect you." Phoebe looked at her sister pleadingly. "Truth spell. Honest answer. We all wanted to know if we can trust Leo, especially since you seem to like him so much..."

"I do NOT like -" Piper started to say, but the spell stopped her from uttering an outright falsehood. She let a profound obscenity escape her lips. "You two better not ask me what I think of you right now," she seethed.

"Piper, please don't be mad," Paige pleaded. "We just wanted to know that we could trust Leo, and that you'd be safe with him." She cast a furtive glance at the young man seated at the table. "No offense, Leo."

"None taken." Leo glanced over at Piper, who was still doing a slow boil. "Well, since your sisters have already taken the initiative, I suggest you make the best use of your time. Ask me anything you want."

"I'm game," Phoebe declared. "Leo, are you planning to take advantage of my sister?"

Leo smiled. "If that means what I think it does, the answer is no, absolutely not."

"Are you an evil warlock who's planning to kill us all in our sleep?"

"No."

"Is everything you've told us up to now been the truth?"

"Yes."

Piper dislodged herself from the far side of the kitchen island, and shushed Phoebe with an angry glare. "Enough," she said simply. Phoebe stepped away and fell silent.

Piper stood in front of Leo and stared at him resolutely. "Leo, I want you to tell me - and my sisters - everything you know about what happened to our mom, and Prue. Will you do that?"

"Yes," Leo answered. After a moment, he added, "But - you may not like everything I'm going to tell you."

"Oh, I'm already sure of that."

"Before we get to that, why don't you ask me the question you really want to ask," Leo suggested quietly. "The one you've wanted to ask all along."

Piper hesitated for a long moment.

"Can I trust you, Leo Wyatt?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I truly believe that you and your sisters really are the Charmed Ones," Leo answered earnestly. "And I would gladly give my life to protect each and every one of you."

Phoebe and Paige stared at Leo, utterly dumbfounded at his reply. Piper took the chair next to Leo and sat down.

"Tell me about your wife," she asked in sotto voice. "When did she die?"

For an instant, a flash of genuine pain crossed Leo's face, which he swallowed with visible effort.

"It was six years ago," he answered tersely. "Her car ran off the road in a storm. I wasn't with her that night, and I couldn't reach her in time." Tears began to well in his eyes. Piper closed her own eyes for a moment in sympathetic pain.

"You said you were married to her for forty-five years?"

"Yes."

Paige and Phoebe exchanged incredulous looks; this was hardly the revelation they were expecting.

"How is that possible?" Piper asked.

"Yeah, this is where we get to the weird part," Leo sighed in resignation. "I was born here, in San Francisco, in 1924," he told them. "I'll be seventy-five years old this coming May."

Paige whistled low. "You look pretty good for somebody pushing eighty, Leo."

Leo smiled mirthlessly. "Thanks."

"So, how is it that a seventy five year old man looks fifty years younger?" Piper asked. "What are you? A warlock? A wizard?"

"No, no, I'm nothing like that at all. I'm not a demon, or any sort of evil magical being that intends you any harm. I'm what's known as a White Lighter."

"And what is a White Lighter?"

"I already told you. Good witches have guardians. I'm yours."

"But that isn't all, is it, Leo?" Paige asked. "I've seen how you look at me - like you know a secret about me nobody else does. And when I first tried to read you, I felt like I was looking into a mirror - or at least, part of me was. Why is that? I'm pretty sure it's not just because I'm a witch. What am I?"

"I don't know for certain, Paige, and that's the truth," Leo said honestly. "I have my suspicions, but that's all."

"Then tell me what you suspect," Paige pleaded. "Leo, please. Ever since I was little, I've known that half my past - half my legacy - is a complete blank. I would like to know who I am, and where I come from - or at least where to start looking!"

Leo sighed heavily. "Truth spell," he muttered. "I really hope you won't come to regret this. Paige, if what I suspect is true, your mother was a witch and your father was a White Lighter - a guardian for witches."

Paige frowned, not understanding. "So? What does that mean?"

"It means, if it's true, you're not just a Charmed One - you are very possibly the most powerful witch who has ever lived!"


	4. Chapter 4

Piper thought she couldn't possibly have heard right.

"Wait, what?" she exclaimed to Leo incredulously. "You're telling us that Paige is going to be the most powerful witch of all time?"

"I said, I thought she might be," Leo protested.

"You can't just drop a bomb like that on us and not explain!" Paige wailed in dismay.

"Piper - Phoebe, Paige - I'm begging you - I'm literally begging you - don't ask me any more questions," Leo pleaded. "I've told you far too much already. I've told you things that are dangerous for you to know."

"How can knowing the truth about myself be dangerous?" Paige protested, and then quickly added, "Wait, don't answer that. That was a rhetorical question. Let me ask you a question you can answer. You seem to think I'm going to turn out to be some kind of super-witch. Is that because you think my father is a White Lighter?"

"Yes."

"But, if I'm half White Lighter and half witch, how does that make me more powerful than just being a witch?"

"Because you may possess powers that no one magical being has ever had. At least, not together in one person."

Paige shook her head. "I still don't understand," she sighed.

"Paige, it's possible you not only have the magical powers of a Charmed One, you might also have all the powers of a White Lighter, too."

"White Lighters have powers?"

"Well, of course they do, they…" Leo broke off abruptly, and sighed in frustration. "This is going to take longer than I thought."

"Okay, that's enough," Piper decided aloud, standing up. "It's obvious each of us has way too many questions, and if we don't want to be here until next Christmas, we need to prioritize. Phoebe, Paige, get the table ready for breakfast. I was about halfway done preparing Eggs Benedict, and I don't want it to spoil. I'm calling a moratorium on the Q&A session until after we eat."

"Aww," Phoebe groaned.

"And you…" Piper declared, turning back to Leo, "It's obvious there are some questions you'd rather not answer. So, spell or no spell, I'm giving you license to reject any question you deem inappropriate."

"How do I do that?" Leo asked, baffled. "The spell is going to compel me to answer truthfully."

Piper looked down her nose at the young man. "Then just respond with the honest answer, 'I'd rather not answer that question'."

"Oh." Leo looked completely nonplussed. It had obviously never occurred to him that there was such a simple circumvention of the spell's reach.

"Piper!" Paige cried out in dismay. "You can't do that!"

"Would that even work?" Phoebe asked dubiously.

"It's going to work because I said so. And no complaints from either of you two," Piper said sternly, "Or I'll make you recount every naughty thing you did in sixth grade," she said, pointing to Paige, "And I'll make you relive your entire eighth grade," she finished, pointing to Phoebe.

The two younger sisters exchanged a dismayed glance.

"That's just mean," Paige protested.

"No, it just means, I mean business," Piper retorted.

"We can always just say, we don't want to answer, either," Phoebe grumbled sullenly.

"Phoebe, just… set the table," Piper grimaced in irritation. "Please."

Paige's expression grew thoughtful. "You're giving Leo a chance," she said quietly to Piper. "Does this mean you trust him?"

Piper looked across the island at the young man seated at the table - the young man who was in reality old enough to be her own grandfather. "Yeah, I think I do," she admitted finally.

"What made you change your mind?"

Piper gave Leo a somber smile. "Because he reminded me, we share a universal experience."

Leo returned the smile, and Paige noted that this exchange wasn't simple flirting - there was something more meaningful going on there. She hadn't heard the entire story of Leo's wife, but she knew that whatever else Leo might be, he was also a grieving widower - or at least he had been, up to now. Without consciously realizing it, Paige's empathic perceptions widened, and she perceived that when Leo met Piper, he saw in her someone kind and remarkable, someone who was in pain, just as he was; but most of all, someone who might rekindle a joy he thought forever lost. Piper represented a flicker of hope for something besides sadness and darkness. Paige drew in a sharp breath. Yes, Leo was prepared to devote himself utterly to protecting all his new charges, but when he looked at Piper, it meant far, far more.

Leo seemed to understand what was happening and he gave Paige a subdued smile. "You were reading me just now."

"Was I? I mean, I was… wasn't I?"

"And doing pretty well," Leo's sad smile broadened into a wide grin, his melancholy mood evaporated. "That's great, Paige, keep practicing."

Piper's delaying tactic proved more valuable than she thought. As the sisters prepared for breakfast, and then sat down to share it with their mysterious new guest, they each realized the whirlwind of questions they had were starting to narrow themselves down to the most salient ones. After the meal was finished, and the breakfast dishes had been cleared away, they moved into the atrium, settled themselves into upholstered chairs and made themselves comfortable.

"Before we start again," Piper announced, "The main reason I asked Leo to talk to us is because he knows something about mom and Prue. Phoebe, Paige, I realize you must have all kinds of questions. But I don't want to get off-topic."

"Can't we each ask a question first?" Paige pleaded. "Just one?"

After assessing the plaintive looks on her sisters' faces, Piper relented. "One each," she agreed. Seeing Phoebe was about to object, she added, "If there's time after Leo tells us about mom and Prue, we can open the floor to any follow up questions. Knowing what happened at the lake is first priority. Okay, Paige, go ahead."

"Do you know who my father is?" Paige blurted out.

"No," Leo admitted sadly. "I'm so sorry, Paige. No, I don't."

Paige could hardly hide her disappointment, but she accepted the answer gracefully; and although it was clearly difficult for her, without follow-up questions. "Okay. Your turn," she said to Phoebe.

"Do you know what powers we have?" Phoebe asked excitedly.

Leo managed a grin. "You ladies are the Charmed Ones. What powers would you like to have?"

"All of them!" Phoebe declared empathically.

"Well, then, you just answered your own question."

"You're not serious… are you?" Phoebe was astounded by Leo's reply. "We can do… anything?"

"Anything you're willing to practice and learn," Leo pointed out. "But you have to walk before you can run, Phoebe. If you want a short list…"

"A very short list, please," Piper cut in.

"Each of you has the ability to manipulate magical energies. Which means, you can cast spells, create potions, bind or lift curses, converse with spirits, heal the sick and injured; but most importantly, if innocent people are threatened, you can vanquish demons. You also should be inheritors of your ancestors' unique magical abilities - precognition. Empathy. Telepathy. Telekinesis. Levitation. Fire starting. Limited control over the weather. Stopping time. There are probably many others, but those are the ones I know about from studying your family's history - although each of you may not possess all of your ancestral powers. Those might be divided up between you."

"Stopping time?" Piper raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"Uhh, actually, Piper, I think that's your power," Leo said awkwardly.

"I thought all I could do is blow stuff up."

Leo's embarrassment was visibly growing. "Yeah. That's probably because you have no control over your powers yet."

"Oh."

"Once you gain some control, you'll actually be able stop time, instead of just blowing things to smithereens. Uhh… you'll probably want to practice on inanimate objects to start with," he suggested.

"You mentioned White Lighter powers, what are those?" Paige couldn't help asking.

Leo smiled. "I will answer that question, Paige, I promise. But it's Piper's turn to ask a question now."

"Thank you," Piper nodded solemnly. "You already know what I want, so, spill."

Leo steepled his hands, trying to think of the best way to start.

"I think you're already aware that I know a lot about each of you, probably more than any stranger should know," he allowed. "That's not an accident. The elders who sent me to watch over you have had an eye on you for some time. The prophecy of the Charmed Ones is well known in magical circles - and beings of great good and great evil have been watching closely to see if those powers ever manifested in anyone in your family line. You've had some very powerful witches in your family tree over the years. But no generation had produced three daughters in the same family - until now."

"Four," Piper corrected him solemnly.

"So before I tell you anything else, you need to understand, you've all been under magical surveillance for a very long time - probably since you were infants."

"Okay, that isn't creepy at all," Piper muttered.

"So now you understand a little better why I'm so anxious to keep you out of sight, as far as the magical community is concerned. I'm going to make a guess that your grandmother intentionally bound your powers to protect you. If you had no powers manifesting for several years, it might fool at least some of the demons into thinking the Charmed Ones would be born into a different generation."

"But if we had our powers when we were little, why don't we remember?" Phoebe asked.

"I don't know, Phoebe. Probably your grandmother included a little selective amnesia in her binding spell - so if any demons with telepathic powers scanned your minds, they would find no evidence of your abilities."

"What? There are demons who can read minds?" Piper shuddered.

"Several," Leo admitted grimly.

Phoebe shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "Okay. Getting scared now," she said.

"I don't want you to be terrified," Leo said placatingly. "But you do need to understand, there are very powerful and malevolent beings out there who would give almost anything to possess what you have. Once you've had more practice, you can use your powers to protect yourselves against them. But right now, you can't."

"Okay, so we've been on the radar for a whole crew of magical beings," Piper sighed. "And now that we have our powers, all hell could break loose."

There was no mirth in Leo's smile. "You're speaking more literally than I think you realize."

"So, how does all this tie in with our mom, and with Prue?"

"Like you, Piper, I read all the transcripts collected by the police. I think you noticed that they were - let's just say - a little light on the details."

"You're being very diplomatic," Piper snorted.

"Don't be too hard on the park rangers, or the police who questioned them," Leo suggested. "It's very difficult for people to explain the inexplicable - or openly confront something truly demonic."

"So you do think a demon killed our mother and our sister."

"I have no doubt of it. I just can't prove it."

"Well, then, why don't you tell us what you do know - starting with, how you got involved."

"I got involved because I was assigned to you as your guardian, in case you ever tapped into your magical abilities. As you're beginning to suspect, there are many such guardians out there, protecting witches all over the world. I'm just one of many. I was chosen for you because I had a perfect 'cover' - I really am a handyman and home inspector, and you needed one." Leo gave Piper a carefully neutral smile. "I'm also really from San Francisco, so I know the lay of the land. I didn't have to invent a background story. What you see is pretty much what you get."

"Except for the fact you're almost eighty," Phoebe snorted. "Let me guess. You have a portrait painting of yourself stashed in a cellar somewhere, and in that picture you're all wrinkled and grey."

Leo laughed heartily. "No, Phoebe. I promise you, nothing like that at all. I'll try to explain that part later, but I want to answer Piper's question first." He resumed his narrative. "When I was told I would be your guardian, I tried to learn everything I could about you - family history and so on. When I found out that your mother and sister had died in very mysterious circumstances, that instantly raised my suspicions of a demonic attack."

"You mean murder," Piper said flatly.

"I think it was," Leo agreed. "One of my best friends is a homicide detective with the city. I asked him to do a little digging into the incident. He's very good at unraveling cold cases."

"Did he find anything?" Piper asked hopefully.

"Enough to convince me," Leo nodded. "It turns out, there have been a string of mysterious drownings at the lake - and not just at the campground where you stayed. They seem to be spaced approximately three years apart, and go back almost sixty years - or at least from the time anyone started noticing and keeping records. But with your family, the pattern was broken. There had been three other such deaths earlier that same summer, at different locations around the lake - your mother and sister were the last known victims."

Paige frowned in puzzlement. "Last?"

"It was obvious something was going on, even if foul play was ruled out," Leo shrugged. "All the campgrounds were closed. If anyone's been up to the lake since then, they've taken their lives into their own hands. The site is currently used as a reservoir by the city. No boating, camping or swimming allowed. My detective friend has tied at least two other missing persons reports to the likelihood those people were illegally camping up by the lake."

"Didn't they, I don't know, search the lake for a monster, or something?" Phoebe asked.

"The lake was dredged on at least three separate occasions," Leo nodded. "Usually to search for bodies. But no, the possibility of natural predators - or even a long-lost plesiosaur - have been ruled out. The deaths always occur in deep water, well away from shore, and the few bodies that were recovered showed no signs of violence, apart from the drowning itself. There were no indications that the victims had been attacked or restrained in any way."

"So the police just treated all these drownings as tragic coincidence?" Piper wasn't able to hide her disgust.

"As I said. Don't judge them too harshly," Leo sighed. "A lot of officers thought there was something wrong. But nothing could be proved, so the cases were filed away. The city made sure the lake was no longer designated as a recreation area. Which is a shame, it's a lovely spot. But they made the right call."

"So, if there is a monster living in the lake, how do we prove it?" Phoebe asked. "And more to the point, how do we stop it?"

"You ladies are getting way ahead of yourselves," Leo cautioned, putting up his hands in a placating gesture. "Yes, you have magical abilities that would help you see into the truth of things. But you're nowhere near ready to start confronting any demons."

"I thought you just said we could do anything," Phoebe objected.

"At the risk of repeating myself, Phoebe, you have to walk before you can run. You don't know how to control your powers. You don't even know what powers you have."

"That's not true," Phoebe said, grinning wickedly, and she pointed to one of the empty coffee mugs resting on the table. It wobbled, then slowly rose up into the air.

Leo watched this grimly for a moment, then he suddenly clapped his hands and shouted, "HEY!" - in the loudest voice he could manage. Phoebe, startled, lost her concentration - and the coffee cup dropped back to the surface of the table, bounced off with a clatter, and landed on the floor. Leo picked up the cup and set it back on the table, his point made.

"You couldn't even deal with Shades, and they're not even proper demons," he said quietly. "And even when you do start to get a sense of how to use your powers, a lapse of concentration like that could be fatal, if you're facing a real demon. You are not ready. I'm not trying to discourage you. But this is absolute truth. You are not ready. You're not even close."

"Then will you help prepare us?" Piper asked. "I want to kill this thing."

Leo sighed. "Piper - your power to vanquish demons can't be driven by hate, or anger, or a desire for vengeance. Otherwise, you'll be no better than the demons you fight. Worse, you could actually become demonic yourself."

"So, what, we just let this thing get away with murder?"

"The Charmed Ones are meant to be protectors of the innocent, not arbiters of justice to the guilty."

"How could I possibly not want to kill the monster that murdered my mother and my sister?" Piper demanded angrily.

Leo returned her stare unflinchingly. "As I said. You're not ready."

Piper squirmed in her chair, genuinely enraged.

"I tried to warn you, most of what I have to tell you, you weren't going to like," Leo said.

Piper's only response was a snort of disgust.

"Piper, over time, you and your sisters are going to have to deal with a great many demons," Leo said soberly. "Trust me. You don't want to be in a hurry to meet your first one."

"I have to side with Piper on this," Phoebe said quietly. "If a demon really did kill my mom and my sister, I want to return the favor."

"You can't approach it like that," Leo protested. "You have to frame all of your actions in terms of protecting the innocent. Remember what I said to you earlier. You're going to start discovering new and incredible powers. All kinds of abilities you couldn't even begin to imagine. And the temptation to use those powers indiscriminately is going to be almost impossible to resist. But you must. Your lives will depend upon it. Not to mention your souls - and the souls of those you would pledge to protect."

"What if we don't want to?" Piper's low voice indicated the depth of her rage. "What if we decide we don't want any part of this higher calling?"

Leo stared at Piper somberly. "Then you wouldn't really be the Charmed Ones," he said finally. "And it would fall to some future generation to take up that destiny."

"Well, then, maybe that's what we should do."

"Piper, you have suffered tremendous losses in your life. You lost your mother and sister when you were just a child. And now that grief has been re-awakened by the passing of your grandmother. It is incredibly hard for you to see past your anger and sorrow right now. Believe me, I know how hard it can be to put your feelings aside, and concentrate on doing the right thing. But I know you can do it."

"So am I just supposed to feel nothing?"

"Not at all," Leo answered. "The pain you feel now can either awaken great compassion within you, or embitter you. That's always the choice, Piper. Good or evil. And only you get to choose which you will embrace."

"Leo." Paige had been sitting quietly, listening to this discussion for several minutes without contributing, but now she sat up. "I think right now, you need to start working on the wiring in Phoebe's bedroom."

Leo looked at her, puzzled. "Sorry, what?"

"You need to go upstairs, and get to work."

"But I -"

"The sisters need to have a private conference," she insisted.

Leo looked at each of the sisters in turn, dismayed; and after a moment, he reluctantly nodded.

"Yes. All right," he agreed in a subdued voice. "That might be best."

"We'll call you, when we're ready to talk some more."

"I'll go get my equipment out of the truck," he announced, standing up. Then, clearly agitated, he abruptly left the room. A moment later, they heard the front door close.

"Sorry," Paige apologized to her sisters. "He was just digging himself in deeper and deeper. It was time to take away the shovel."

"Don't blame Leo for a spell you cast," Piper said evenly.

"We're sorry, Piper," Phoebe said contritely. "We were only trying to help. And especially, we were trying to help you."

"I know." Piper sighed heavily. "But it still irks me. I don't mean you guys," she added quickly, seeing the hurt looks on her sisters' faces.

"So what do we do about the creature at the bottom of the lake?"

"For right now, nothing," Piper decided. "As much as that galls me."

Phoebe and Paige exchanged a dismayed look. "You're not serious?"

"Leo is right. We're not ready," Piper grimaced as she was forced to speak a truth she didn't want to admit. "The demon in the lake is powerful - and deadly. And before we go up against it, I want to be absolutely sure we can deal with it, once and for all. I'm done burying family members."

"But it could take months, or even years, to learn how to be witches," Phoebe moaned disconsolately.

"Then we have to figure out a way to learn the craft faster. And we have to give it our full attention, and make it our unconditional first priority."

She looked over to see Paige grinning delightedly at her.

"What?" Piper ruffed.

"Look at you," Paige said quietly. "Our big sister, who wanted nothing to do with witchcraft, is now reaching for the biggest broom in the Wicca closet."

"Don't make fun of me."

"I'm not. I admire you so much. I wish I had even half your courage - or your strength."

Piper looked at Paige in utter surprise. Piper had never even considered herself courageous, or strong, or even strong-willed. But as she looked at both her sisters, and saw them looking back at her expectantly, she realized how wide was the gulf between how she saw herself, and how her sisters saw her. There was truth in Paige's words. She felt deeply humbled.

"So, what do we do now?" Phoebe asked.

Piper heard the front door open again. "Hold that thought," she said, quickly getting up. "I'll be right back."

She hurried into the foyer, to find Leo bringing in all the supplies he would need to complete the re-wiring of the upstairs bedroom. He looked at her recalcitrantly.

"I'm sorry," Piper said contritely. "We should never have subjected you to this. The truth is hard enough, without forcing it from you magically."

Leo sighed, and set down his tool box. "Well, the second rule you'll learn about magic is, all the best spells have a ready-made backlash built into them," he admitted. "Part of that is to provide disincentive for personal gain, but mostly it's about maintaining balance."

"There's so much we want to know," Piper said. "And there's so much you could teach us."

"Does this mean you trust me now?"

"It does," Piper nodded. "It doesn't always mean I'll obey you," she cautioned him with a smile. "That's a different contract altogether."

Leo managed a grin. "Fair enough."

"But I'll listen to you. And so will my sisters."

"That's a start."

"At the risk of making you angry, I am going to ask you another question."

"Go ahead. You gave me an escape hatch if I don't want to answer."

"Yeah, well, I'm going to ask you to answer this one. Please."

"What do you want to know?"

"What's the name of your detective friend?"

"Morris. Darryl Morris."

"And he's really a homicide detective."

Leo grinned. "He really is."

"We don't need to do this today, but - someday soon - I would like to meet him," Piper said. "And learn from him everything he's found out about this demon at the lake."

Leo pursed his lips. "I can't promise that," he said.

"Leo -"

"Piper - what he can share with you is not up to me. And I would very strongly advise you against compelling him magically. That's not a can of worms you want to open."

"Will you ask him if we can meet? Please?"

After a moment, Leo nodded. "Yes. Yes, I will."

"All right then." Piper made a sweeping gesture in the direction of the stairwell. "You're free to go to work, Mr. Wyatt. And I promise, the next question we ask you will be to join us for lunch, about four hours from now."

"That's a question I can answer," Leo grinned.

As he picked up his toolbox and headed for the stairs, Piper called after him. "Leo, wait."

He turned back. "What is it?"

Piper hesitated. "Did you mean what you said to Paige earlier? About wanting to ask me out?"

"Yes, I did," Leo admitted readily.

Piper mulled that over for a long moment. "I'm… not ready to deal with that yet," she admitted. "But… I would like very much to go out with you some time. Not as my handyman. Not as my guardian."

"As a friend?" Leo's tone suggested he would be bitterly disappointed if that were the case.

"How about, as two people who would like to get to know each other a little better," Piper said with a subdued smile. "And just see where it goes from there."

Leo's sunny grin returned. "I would like that."

"So would I." Piper's smile turned wistful. "Give me time, Leo, please. I'm working through a lot."

"I know you are."

"I won't keep you waiting long. I promise."

"Okay."

"All right. You get to work, and I am going to go deal with the two monsters I call my sisters," Piper declared with a grin. "See you later."

As Leo headed up the stairs, Piper came back into the living room, her smile still lingering on her face. She sat back down on the couch, and Phoebe and Paige looked at her expectantly.

"Well?" Paige asked.

"Okay. You were right," Piper admitted, giving in. "He's got a really cute butt."

All three sisters burst into peals of laughter.


	5. Chapter 5

By unspoken consent, Leo and the Halliwell sisters each gave the other a wide berth for the rest of the afternoon. Leo spent his time single-mindedly concerning himself with household repairs, and nothing else. Lunch was an awkwardly muted affair, with discussion limited to small talk that couldn't possibly raise any more issues - despite the fact that everyone wanted to talk about anything other than what they actually talked about. But no one wanted to experience more of a backlash from the truth spell than they already had.

Fortunately, the faulty wiring legitimately required Leo's full attention, and it was late in the afternoon before the job was done. Leo departed with the promise to return again in two days time - and to spend the whole of his next visit answering any questions the sisters might want to ask, about magic or demons or anything else. But as Leo left the manor, he sighed with undisguised relief. He had revealed far more of himself this day than he'd ever intended - and was grateful that the damage wasn't much worse.

After putting his tools away in the truck, he drove up the street half a block, and as before, parked across from the nondescript sedan where Inspector Darryl Morris was keeping a watchful eye on the street. The detective waved at Leo to join him in the car. Leo entered on the passenger side and gave his friend a rueful smile as he settled into the seat.

"It went that well today, did it?" Darryl asked.

"You really don't want to know," Leo assured him. "Did you find out anything about Paige's father?"

"Maybe. Nothing conclusive, but we now have a person of interest, at least."

Darryl reached behind his seat, and pulled a small file from an accordion folder. He shook out a photograph and handed it to Leo. It was a picture of a man with a weatherbeaten face, an unkempt beard, with deep darkened circles under the eyes. The man's hair and beard were liberally whitened, and he was wearing a tattered flannel work shirt, jeans and boots. The picture was not a portrait - it was taken from a distance, and slightly out of focus; apparently it had been taken from a security camera.

"Recognize him?" Darryl asked hopefully.

Leo shook his head. "Never seen him before."

"His name is Sam Wilder. Does that ring any bells?"

Leo shook his head again. "What's his connection to Paige?"

"I paid a visit to the church where the Matthews girl was given up for adoption. I showed this picture to the nuns, and they positively identified him as the man who brought in the baby twenty four years ago."

"So this man _is_ Paige's father."

"Maybe. Twenty four years is a long time to go for an eyewitness identification," Darryl cautioned. "But there's more. A woman was with Wilder in the church that night. Just on the off chance, I took a drivers' license photo of Patricia Halliwell with me. The nuns gave positive ID on her, too."

Leo sat back in the car seat, stunned.

"The nuns said that the couple came in that night, very distraught, begging them to take the child for her own safety," Darryl continued. "From the description, they sounded very much like a heartbroken mother and father giving up their child. They wouldn't say why they thought the child was in danger, and they left without warning, forcing the nuns to keep her, at least until social services could be contacted for adoption placement," Darryl continued. "The couple also refused to identify themselves, other than to admit they were the parents."

"So, Sam Wilder and Patricia Halliwell are Paige's mother and father."

"It's possible, but we still have to prove it somehow."

"Any information on Wilder?"

"Nothing recent. Wilder has no record with the city or county - no drivers' license, no tax returns, no rental agreements, no home or business ownership records - but I found a birth certificate." He let that statement hang in the air.

"And?" Leo prompted.

"And it was issued one hundred and twenty-five years ago."

"What?!" Leo stared at the detective incredulously.

"Hey, you were the one suggesting that Paige Matthews had a White Lighter for a father," Darryl pointed out. "If this turns out to be right, then I'd say that's pretty solid evidence."

"Damn," Leo swore softly.

"That's not all. Guess where this photo was taken." Darryl stabbed a finger at Wilder's blurred face. There was almost nothing in the background in focus that Leo could make out. He shrugged helplessly. "Surprise me."

"This photo," Darryl said impressively, "Was taken up at the lake. Near the docks where several of the drownings took place. Including Patricia and Prudence Halliwell."

The two men's eyes met.

"So, he's not only Paige's father, he has something to do with the demon," Leo said grimly.

"Leo, please, leave the detective stuff to me. You keep leaping to the island of conclusions without any evidence."

"You're right, you're right," Leo admitted with a heavy sigh.

"Doesn't matter what we think. Only what we can prove. However," he conceded, "I am taking this as a - working hypothesis," he said carefully. "We have circumstantial evidence this man is Paige Matthews' birth father. And if he's still spending any time up at the lake, we'll have an officer posted, to bring him in for questioning."

"Nice work," Leo smiled. "Thanks, Darryl."

"The only problem is, if Wilder really is a White Lighter, I don't know how we can keep from doing that flashing light thing, if he doesn't want to answer any questions."

"Orbing, Darryl. I keep telling you, the term is 'orbing'."

"Whatever. Our patrol officers aren't going to be able to chase after a guy who can disappear into a cloud of little white lights. Anyway, you should at least be able to go to your bosses with this, and see if Wilder really is one of yours."

"Yeah," Leo admitted reluctantly. "I have to be careful, though. I don't want to disclose why I'm asking."

"Why is this a problem?" Darryl asked. "It's not like you're the White Lighter who was shacking up with the witch." His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

Leo shifted his weight uncomfortably in the car seat. "The sisters know about me," he confessed finally. "Not just about my being a White Lighter. They know about my previous life."

"What?" Darryl grimaced. "Wyatt, have you lost your mind?"

"They cast a spell of truth on me," Leo protested. "It's not like I had any choice."

"Man, what is _wrong_ with you? Are you trying to get us both fired?" Darryl was still piqued. "You've had your head up your backside ever since you met the Halliwell sisters. You've been dealing with witches longer than I've been alive! How can you mess up like that? Getting caught by a truth spell isn't even a rookie mistake! Seriously, man, what makes these witches so different from any of the others you've guarded?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Leo sighed heavily, grateful that away from the manor, he could freely tell a lie.

"Well, I'll tell you what, partner," Darryl grumbled angrily. "You need to get your head in the game. And you need to do it fast. The last thing I need is any trouble from your bosses. I have enough trouble with mine."

"Understood," Leo answered meekly, shrinking back into his seat.

* * *

It was nearly two in the morning, and Piper had been tossing restlessly all night. Finally, conceding that sleep wasn't coming any time soon, she sat up in bed with a resigned sigh, and put on the light. The lamp on her nightstand cast a soft glow all around the room.

Over the last few days, Piper had started to put more and more of her own belongings into her grandmother's bedroom, and the space was starting to reflect Piper's own personality and taste. But most of the furniture in the room still belonged to her grandmother, and Piper still had a sense of the old woman's presence everywhere she looked. It was not a haunting sensation. It was almost comforting. But Piper knew she would feel most comfortable when she finally considered the room her very own.

"You own the damn house now," she reminded herself in a low voice. "So stop pretending it belongs to somebody else."

In truth, Piper's restlessness had little to do with her grandmother, and it was almost a relief to find herself distracted from her grief by some other concern. She was thinking of Leo. She knew so little about him, and wanted to know more. But each new thing she learned about the young man - who apparently wasn't so young after all - left Piper feeling more puzzled, more confused.

She liked him. She wanted to trust him, and had more or less decided to make that leap of faith. And he apparently liked her too. No, it was more than that. There was a genuine spark of desire between them. Which puzzled Piper all the more. Leo was eighty years old, and a widower. But he had the appearance of a much younger man, someone barely into his twenties. Which was the real Leo? Was it somehow possible that both were the real man? Was he someone who had lived an entire lifetime contentedly with another woman - and yet could still be a younger man expressing interest in her? The more Piper thought about it, the more confused she got - and realized she was giving herself a headache.

Leo's interest in her was sincere. Of that, Piper was sure. And Paige had assured her that Leo intended no harm to Piper or her sisters. And this whole business about Leo being a White Lighter - she barely understood what that meant, what his guardianship entailed, or what that foreshadowed for any personal relationship they might embark upon. Leo had been free and generous in providing answers to any of Piper's questions - even without the constraint of the truth spell - and none of those answers made the picture any clearer.

Sighing again, Piper fluffed her pillows, pushed them up against the headboard, and leaned back against them. She liked Leo. A lot. He had a shy, awkward smile that somehow made her heart melt. And she sensed a quiet strength in him, a protective quality that went beyond his 'job' of protecting a coven of witches. He was a gentle man, and yes, he was beautiful; Piper bit her lower lip in idle lust, admitting to herself she found him attractive. But what tugged at her suspicions was the awareness that she had very little idea of who the real Leo was. And she suspected there was far more to him, something even beyond a lifetime of experience of which she had no inkling. Who was Leo Wyatt?

Piper grinned ruefully to herself. The truth spell had backfired spectacularly. She had spent the entire day getting nothing but honest answers - and was no more enlightened with that knowledge than she'd been in her ignorance. She'd gotten everything she thought she wanted - only to find it wasn't what she needed at all. The wisdom she sought, the understanding, was still just tantalizingly out of reach.

Piper tried to distract herself by recalling what Leo had told her about the demon in the lake, but she had neither the heart or the mindfulness to tackle that subject now. Demons were real. Leo had warned her, quite strongly, not to meet her first demon too soon. With a slight shiver, Piper realized she agreed wholeheartedly with that advice. Yes, she wanted to avenge her mother and her sister. But everything in this world of magic was so new and so strange to her - she had no idea what was good or what was evil - she was having a hard enough time deciding what was even real. What, then, could she rely upon?

As soon as she asked herself the question, Piper knew the answer. Her touchstones were her sisters, Phoebe and Paige. They were real enough, and they needed her. And Piper had to admit to herself, even without the truth spell: she needed them, too. Everything else would have to follow from family. Leo had promised to light her way - and Piper was only beginning to realize how badly she needed a lantern.

Piper wasn't the only Halliwell sister who was sleeping fitfully that night. Phoebe had tossed and turned for several hours, haunted by demons of her own; they finally chased her from her bed, and she padded downstairs in a mixture of irritation and unease, settling finally in the atrium. A framed photo of Penny Halliwell sat on the low table, and Phoebe picked it up, staring hard at face in the picture. Huge, heavy tears began to well in her eyes. She was startled as she heard a soft noise behind her, and turned to see her baby sister Paige coming into the room, adjusting the wrap on her terrycloth bathrobe, her eyes still nearly swollen shut with sleep.

"Honey, it's two in the morning," Paige protested, her breathy voice lowered by almost an octave by disturbed slumber.

"Was I making a lot of noise?" Phoebe asked anxiously.

"No," Paige said, yawning expansively. "But you have an empath for a sister, remember? I could feel you were in pain."

"Paige, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay." She settled onto the couch next to her sister. "What's bothering you?"

Phoebe stared again at the picture of her grandmother, and fresh tears began to flow.

"I should have come home sooner," she said brokenly. "I should have seen Grams while she was still alive - I should have…"

"Hush," Paige murmured, kissing Phoebe's cheek. "You're home now. You're here with us. That's all that matters."

Phoebe turned her head slightly to look at her sister. "Paige... I've done some terrible things," she moaned in dismay.

Paige nodded solemnly. "I know."

"You do?" Phoebe seemed close to panic.

"I don't know what you've done," Paige disclaimed quickly. "I just know you're bothered by it. But you're not alone any more, Phoebe. We'll figure something out. We'll find some way to fix it."

Phoebe began to cry softly, and Paige held her tightly, allowing Phoebe's unendurable grief to pass between them. Phoebe's entire body shuddered as one choked sob after another forced its way to the surface. Several minutes passed as Phoebe's anguish slowly expelled itself. Paige said nothing, letting her embrace comfort where words could not. Finally, Phoebe's sobs quieted, and Paige kissed her sister again, hugging her even more tightly. A light went on in the kitchen.

"What's…" Phoebe started to say, but Paige shushed her.

"It's okay," she murmured softly. "Piper's up. She's going to make us some cocoa."

"I woke everyone," Phoebe sighed in dismay.

"She was already awake. She's been thinking about Leo."

They sat together, listening to the intermittent noise coming from the kitchen: the clink of a saucepan on the stove burner, the measured, rhythmic scraping of a stirring whisk, the soft bubbling of boiling milk. The aroma of melting chocolate and burning cinnamon began to waft into the room.

A few minutes later, Piper came into the kitchen, carrying a tray with three mugs. Like Paige, her hair was tousled and her eyes barely open; she had a well worn bathrobe and slippers over her nightgown. She set the tray down on the low table in front of them, and gently pushed her way onto the other end of the couch, next to Phoebe. Paige released her sister so that Phoebe could now be embraced by Piper.

Piper regarded Phoebe with a twinge of sympathetic pain. Here was her younger sister, tears streaming down her cheeks, feeling as lost and alone as she'd ever felt. As Piper herself had felt for months, staring at her own careworn reflection in her bedroom mirror, in the long, empty days after her grandmother died. Now was not a time for recriminations or bitterness. All that was needed was forgiveness. And as Piper pulled her sister close to her, she felt her heart flooded with it.

"Piper - I…"

"Ssh." Piper put a finger to her sister's lips. No explanations or apologies were necessary. Not this night. As Paige had done, Piper left a maternal kiss on her sister's cheek.

"I'm so glad you're home," she said simply, holding her tight. Paige settled herself against Phoebe on the other side, sandwiching their sister between them. A few stray tears spilled down Phoebe's cheeks, but they were no longer tears of guilt or sorrow; now they were in gratitude for the miracle of forgiveness shown by her sisters, leaving her with a heartbreaking joy. There was someplace where she was not only wanted, she was needed. She had come home at last.

"I love you guys. You know that, right?"

"We love you too, Pheebs," Piper murmured.

"Now shut up and drink your cocoa," Paige added with a grin.

By unspoken consent, they all sat up, took their mugs of cocoa and sipped from them contentedly. The hot, sweet liquid warmed their bellies and soothed their agitated emotions. Phoebe sighed heavily, expelling the last of her anguish.

They finished their mugs, and settled back in on the couch again. Without realizing it, all three fell asleep as they cuddled together, and when the morning sun peeked in through the atrium windows several hours later, the Halliwell sisters were still there, entwined in each other's arms.

* * *

 _The Charmed Ones will return in 'Dark Water'._


End file.
